


take me home before the storm

by somehowunbroken



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Police, Alternate Universe - Writing & Publishing, M/M, Murder Mystery, Serial Killers, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2019-12-18 17:30:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18254528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somehowunbroken/pseuds/somehowunbroken
Summary: Tyson is settling in for a nice, boring day of filing reports and pretending he's not stealing glances at Colin, the precinct's resident mystery novelist, who is far, far more interesting than desk duty. Then Nate finds out that someone is using Colin's books as the basis for a series of murders.So much for boring.





	take me home before the storm

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [racheesi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/racheesi/pseuds/racheesi) in the [wesmashing](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/wesmashing) collection. 



> -it takes a WHOLE village!!! thanks to J, who alpha read this very enthusiastically, and to knifeshoeboys and stormylullabye, who helped out with beta duties. many thanks also to deja for listening to me as i wrote this. y'all are heroes. <3
> 
> -title from fever ray's "[keep the streets empty for me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWFb5z3kUSQ)," because i had it on a playlist when i was writing the Bad Guy parts.
> 
> - **warnings:** this does not have graphic depictions of violence, which is why it's not tagged, but there is violence in the fic. skip to the end notes for a more detailed description if you want to know about the violence and injuries before reading. <3

"Hey, did you hear about the police station in Illinois?" Tyson hears, and when he looks up from the report that keeps refusing to just write itself, it's to see Colin smiling down at him and holding two takeout coffee cups. "Apparently they arrested someone for causing all this crazy cold weather."

"How do you arrest someone for causing a polar vortex?" Tyson asks. He frowns, but feels it melt off his face when Colin sets one of the coffees down in front of him.

"Her name is Elsa, from somewhere called Arendelle," Colin says, looking at him expectantly.

"Is that a suburb of Chicago or something?" Tyson asks, reaching for the coffee.

There's a snort from behind him, and then EJ starts singing _Let It Go_ from his desk. It clicks for Tyson a half a second later, and he rolls his eyes as he takes a sip of the coffee. There's a splash of milk and more sugar than should actually be able to dissolve in a single cup; Tyson doesn't know why he's still surprised that Colin knows how he likes his coffee, but they're four years into Colin showing up to shadow them for research purposes, and Tyson still gets a warm fuzzy feeling every time he notices that Colin noticed something about him.

It's probably just the feeling of good coffee hitting his stomach, which is already full of bad station house coffee, Tyson tells himself firmly.

"What's going on today?" Colin asks. He sets his coffee on Tyson’s desk and shrugs out of his coat, then reaches for his scarf, unwinding it quickly before dropping them both on the chair beside Tyson's desk. It's nothing that's meant to be alluring in any way, and yet here Tyson is, living his life and being unfairly attracted to an unfairly attractive man.

"Not much so far," Nate says, stepping in and saving Tyson from his Colin-related tongue-tied-ness, because he's a good partner. "We're probably just going to be reviewing recent case files today, so I hope you have some stuff to write or edit already. Unless something new pops up, we're doing desk work for the foreseeable future."

"I can work with that," Colin says easily. "I'll head to the conference room and start piecing together my next proposal. I told my editor I'd get something to her next week, and honestly, I haven't put nearly enough work into it yet."

"Oh, you can work here," Nate says smoothly, standing from his desk. "Go for it, man. I have to pull some files from Records, and I'll be at least an hour. This way, if you have any questions, you can just ask Tyson."

Tyson makes an aborted little movement that he manages to turn into reaching for his coffee as Nate shuffles out from behind his desk. He does glare daggers at Nate as Colin thanks him for the use of his desk and starts setting up his things, and when Nate just smirks at him, Tyson mentally downgrades him to the _worst_ possible partner, actually. Pulling shit from Records, Tyson's ass. He's just going to go bug the cute guy with the French accent who manages the records section until they end up making out in a supply closet.

Again.

"Let me know if you need any help or anything," Tyson calls as Nate makes his way towards the staircase. "You know. With the records."

Nate just waves as he disappears through the doorway.

Colin laughs, and when Tyson looks over, he's smiling his totally adorable crinkly-eyed smile. "What's so interesting in Records?"

"Jo Drouin," EJ says dryly. "They're not dating, but that's really only a technicality, and it _definitely_ doesn't stop them."

"Well," Colin says, laughing a little. "I guess I won't go get anything from Records today, then."

"Definitely don't," Tyson agrees. "Do let me know if you need to bounce ideas off of me for your proposal, though. Otherwise I'm just going to be working on the closing reports for that robbery downtown last week, and even this nice coffee you brought me isn't going to keep me awake through that."

Colin laughs again, and Tyson smiles back a little helplessly. "I'm not going to distract you from your work, Detective Barrie."

EJ chokes on air at his desk, and Tyson very maturely doesn't flip him off, mostly because Colin is still smiling at him.

"Okay," Tyson says, nodding a little. "You write, I'll write, we'll all write."

"That's our jobs," Colin agrees, and with that, he bends over to take his laptop out of its case.

The problem with Colin Wilson, Tyson thinks as he scrolls back up to the top of his report, is that there is nothing at all wrong with Colin Wilson. He's kind and funny; he writes mystery novels with a badass lesbian cop protagonist and actually gives enough of a shit about accuracy to spend time in an actual police station for research; he brings Tyson coffee without being asked. He's also incredibly fun to look at, which has been Tyson's cross to bear for the last four years, because Colin was in a long-term, long-distance thing with someone he met while he was living in Nashville until about two months ago, and Tyson respects love, okay, and he's not gonna pounce on someone who's just out of something that they were in for literal and actual years.

He's got a reminder programed into his phone for three months, one week, and four days from when Colin mentioned that he and his ex ended things. Just… as a point of reference. Or something.

The point is that Colin is distracting when there's nothing super interesting going on, and this report is making Tyson want to throw his monitor out a window. He can absolutely focus when there's something to investigate, leads to chase down, that kind of thing, but right now he can see Colin staring intently at his laptop if he turns his head just a little bit, and that's so much more interesting to watch than anything this robbery report could contain.

Tyson sighs and turns fully back to his computer. The sooner he deals with this, the sooner he can never think about it again. Two people broke into a jewelry store, stole a forty dollar watch, didn't break anything, and were caught on camera running exactly three stores down before revealing their faces; everything about this investigation is a waste of time and money, but here he is.

He's just finishing up the report when Nate comes back into the bullpen. Tyson has a chirp about the records guy ready, but it dies on his lips when Nate stops in front of his desk. "What?"

"I think I found something in Records," Nate says. He sounds super serious.

EJ snorts from behind Nate. "Was it Drouin's—"

"EJ," Tyson snaps, because sure, he was going to make that joke, too, but he can see the look on Nate's face.

"You should go get Detective Rantanen," Nate says, turning to face EJ. "And maybe Captain Landeskog."

EJ's face goes serious in an instant. "Copy. Meeting room in five?"

"Yeah," Nate says. He glances over at Colin. "Uh, so..."

"I know, I know, I'm going," Colin says, tapping at his laptop. "I can't be here until—"

"Actually," Nate interrupts. This whole thing is so very un-Nate-like, and every hair on the back of Tyson's neck is standing straight up. "I'd like your input on this, if you don't mind."

Colin pauses with his hand on the lid of his open laptop. For some reason, he glances at Tyson; it's not like Tyson has a clue, though, so he just shrugs. "Okay," he says after a moment. "I'll see what I can do, Detective MacKinnon."

Nate just nods and heads for the meeting room, and Tyson stands up to follow him, draining the last of his coffee before he goes.

-0-

It takes almost ten minutes for EJ to return; apparently Mikko had been down with the beat cops, trying to see if Jost or Compher had anything new on a case that's going cold. Nate keeps glancing at the stack of folders he's got on the table, and Gabe is sitting at the table with his _I'm the captain, nothing bad will happen to you while I'm here_ face on. Colin is sitting next to Tyson, doing something on his phone that Tyson isn't creeping on, because he's a good person who doesn't pull that kind of shit. It helps that he's deeply curious about whatever Nate has in his folders.

EJ collapses into a chair and nods at Nate. "We're ready, bud."

"And incredibly curious," Colin adds. "Usually I don't get to come in until much later in these things."

Nate goes for a smile, but the expression he makes instead makes Tyson wince. "Yeah, well, I think you'll have some insights for us on this one, Colin."

Gabe coughs. "What exactly do you have there, Nate?"

"I was down in Records," Nate starts. He waits a beat, probably so someone can make a joke about Drouin, but everyone's too tuned in to go for the joke right now. "I pulled a bunch of files on recent cases that are going cold, just to see if there was anything we could shake loose, and I noticed something weird about a few of them."

"And you think I can help," Colin says slowly. "Because they're weird. Weird how?"

Nate holds eye contact with Colin for a moment before sighing. "You can tell me I'm off base," he says, then opens the first file. "Alfred Moreson, 38, killed in a drive-by two months ago. He was alone in his tattoo parlour on Colfax late at night closing things up. No leads."

Tyson feels his blood go cold. He sneaks a look at Colin, who has his lips pressed tightly together.

"Sandra Gibboney, 55," Nate goes on, moving to the next file. "Single mom to a teenage daughter, living in a nice building in LoDo. The daughter came home one day to find the mom dead in the kitchen. Multiple stab wounds. No clear sign of entry or exit. Late last month."

"Christ," EJ mutters. "I was on that one. I didn't even think…"

"Nobody did," Mikko says. "What's the other one, Nate?"

"Sybil Leavens, 82," Nate says, opening the last file. "Lived alone just on the other side of the river into Lakewood. Her neighbours hadn't seen her in a while, so they got the building manager to check on her the middle of last week. They figured it was natural causes, but it was—"

"Poison," Colin says softly. "Curare in the bloodstream. She suffocated because her lungs stopped working."

"Yeah," Nate confirms. He clears his throat softly. "So when I thought I was seeing a pattern..."

"They're all based on my books," Colin says slowly, like he doesn't want to say it but can't keep the words in. "Somebody out there is using my books to plan out actual murders."

"That's, what," Mikko says, frowning. " _Witch Hunt_ is the first one, and I think the last one is _Cold as Snow_. Which one is the middle one?"

" _Twice Shy,_ " Gabe says. "Which leaves two published books."

" _We All Fall Down_ is about someone dying in a house fire," EJ says. "Nate, did you look for something that matched the profile?"

Nate shakes his head. "They've been in order," he says. "Not that we shouldn't check, but the ones I found were in order of when the books were published, and they're about a month apart. It feels like whoever's doing this is following that, for whatever reason."

"So you should be looking for a suspicious house fire, and then we need to watch for a high-profile kidnapping that goes wrong, like in _Hello Operator_ ," Colin says. Tyson glances over and isn't really shocked to see that Colin is gripping the chair he's sitting in so hard that his knuckles are going white. "Jesus. I've never been glad that I had a publication date pushed back before, but at least my newest one is still with the editors. Less to work from."

"We'll find out who it is before that happens," Tyson says. It's a promise he can't make, not really, but Colin sends him a small, tight smile anyway.

"Colin," Gabe says, and it's his gentle talking-to-victims voice. "Thanks for confirming this with us. We're gonna get started investigating them as a string of crimes, rather than as individual incidents, and hopefully that will help us turn up some new information. You should maybe take the afternoon, okay? Is there someone we can call for you?"

"No, I," Colin says. He darts a glance around the room, finally settling on Tyson. "Everyone I know here is at work right now. I can just..."

"I'll take you home," Tyson cuts in. He glances at Gabe, who gives him a small nod. "We'll grab lunch, chill for a while, okay? C'mon."

Colin shakes his head. "You have work," he protests.

"I'm giving him the afternoon off," Gabe says lightly. "Tyson can take you home, Colin, and if you think of anything that might be helpful, you can just tell him, okay?"

"Okay," Colin says.

It's awful to see him like this; Colin is one of the happiest, more friendly guys Tyson has ever met, and to see him shaking and sick-looking makes something twist in Tyson's stomach. He can't imagine being in Colin's shoes right now, but he can absolutely relate to things happening at the precinct that made him nauseous afterwards. The least he can do, Tyson thinks, is get Colin back home, where he's in comfortable, familiar surroundings. He'll check in with Nate later to see what they were able to figure out.

"Come on," Tyson says, getting to his feet and giving Colin what he hopes is a gentle smile. "Let's get back to your place."

-0-

Tyson has never been to Colin's apartment before, because of important things like professionalism and lack of opportunity. It would be in pretty bad form for him to take this of all times to nose around, so Tyson just follows him through the door and locks it behind him.

Colin laughs, but it doesn't sound happy. "Welcome, I guess," he says. "This isn't… sorry. I can be a good host, but I'm really freaked out right now."

"I mean, I'm freaked out right now, so I can't imagine how it is for you," Tyson says. He wants to rolls his eyes at himself as he's saying it, but it gets a laugh out of Colin, so apparently it wasn't as cheesy a line as Tyson thought it might be. "Do you have some kind of, I don't know, comfort food? Cookies?"

This time Colin's laugh is a lot closer to real. "Trying to steal my Oreo stash?"

"Well, we're not close enough to _my_ Oreo stash to make it work," Tyson says, grinning. "I promise to replace whatever Oreos we may or may not eat. Fair?"

"I have the chocolate peanut butter pie ones," Colin says, heading down the hallway. "I hope that doesn't offend your delicate cookie sensibilities."

Tyson snorts as he follows Colin. "They're the number two Oreo of all time," he says as they step into the kitchen. "Long live the banana split creme ones, though."

"Are those new?" Colin asks as he opens a cabinet. "I don't think I've seen them at Target."

"They're super old, actually," Tyson says. "They came out while I was in my freshman year of college. Limited edition."

"I'm sorry for your loss, then," Colin says, pulling out a package of Oreos and putting it on the table. "I have milk, and I think I have cocoa mix somewhere, if you want that."

"I'll do milk," Tyson says. "Unless you're looking for an excuse to have cocoa, in which case, I will absolutely have cocoa."

Colin laughs and pulls a box from the cabinet. "You convinced me."

"I'm good like that," Tyson replies, smiling. "Need a hand with anything?"

"Mugs," Colin says, pointing at another cabinet before rummaging around in the refrigerator. "I'll get this going, but I've been told that it takes people a minute to pick out which mug they want, so you should probably start that process."

Tyson raises an eyebrow. "How many mugs am I about to find in that cabinet, Colin?"

Colin turns to grin at him before bending to get a saucepan from a shelf in the island. "A few."

"A few," Tyson repeats as he walks the few steps to the cabinet. "Why do I feel like I'm about to—oh my _god_ , Colin!"

Colin starts laughing as he straightens up and puts the saucepan on the stove. "A few and then a few more," he amends. "And then a few more than that."

"There's like three dozen mugs in here," Tyson says incredulously. "Do any of them match?"

"No," Colin says cheerily. "That's kind of the point. Go ahead and pick one."

Tyson shakes his head, but he's for sure grinning as he reaches into the cabinet. There are mugs in all sorts of sizes; a few of them are clearly handmade, a few are from travel destinations. Most of them have fun little designs or sayings on them, and it's something Tyson didn't know about Colin, this habit of collecting odd mugs, but he's hopelessly endeared. More endeared, he corrects in his own mind, because it's not like he wasn't here already.

"What's this one?" he asks as he pulls out a smaller white mug with a whale tail on it. The tail is made of geometric lines in all the colours of the rainbow.

"My gay whale cup," Colin says promptly. "One of my cousins gave it to me a few years ago when I came out to her."

"Gay whale cup," Tyson echoes. His mind is racing a little. "Is it weird if I want to use the gay whale cup?"

"The rule of gay whale cup is that you have to be either gay or a whale to use it," Colin says, smiling slightly. "So unless there's something I don't know about you, Detective..."

"We're not on a case, just call me Tyson," Tyson blurts out. "And, uh. I can follow the rules of gay whale cup, then."

Colin's eyes widen a little, but then he smiles, big and bright. "Yeah, okay. Go ahead and use the gay whale cup, _Tyson_."

"And you should use this one," Tyson says, sticking his hand into the cabinet and grabbing the first mug he comes to just so he can change the subject. Coming out can still be nerve-wracking even when it's to someone who just came out to you. He glances down at the mug in his hand and frowns. "What the fuck is this one?"

Colin starts laughing. "I get weird stuff from fans," he says, shaking his head. "Some of it is worth keeping for that exact reaction you just had."

"This just says _MURDER SOMEONE YOU DON'T KNOW_ in pink glitter," Tyson says. "This is... what is this? Why?"

Colin is still laughing. "It's from a line I said when I was giving a book talk," he says. "Back in Nashville. I thought it was hilarious, so I kept it."

"Well, you're using it today," Tyson says, setting both mugs down. He turns to start putting away the part of the collection he'd taken out of the cabinet. "Almost ready?"

"Getting there," Colin says. "Hey, Tyson?"

"Yeah?" Tyson asks, putting the last mug back and turning around.

"Thanks," Colin says, sweet and simple. "For coming home with me, making me laugh. It's not that everything is better, but I _feel_ a little better about it, and that feels like a big win right now."

Tyson doesn't blush, which is probably an actual miracle. "Hey, no problem," he manages, smiling at Colin. "Let's get the cookies and cocoa party started, and we can feel even better."

"Sounds like a plan to me," Colin says, smiling right back at him.

-0-

Colin shoos him back to the precinct after about an hour, insisting that he's fine and that Tyson should focus his energy on figuring out who's behind the string of murders. "I promise I'm okay," he says, giving Tyson a smile that seems a little brittle around the edges, but mostly fine. "I think I should call my agent and my editor and let them know what's going on, though. I'll let you know if they have anything interesting to add."

"Give them my number," Tyson says. "Just in case."

Colin promises, and Tyson really doesn't have a reason to stick around after that, so he smiles one last time and heads for his car. It's a quiet drive back to the precinct, which is good, because the precinct is anything but.

"Hey," Tyson says as he walks in. Nate, EJ, and Mikko aren't at their desks, but Kerfoot, one of their data guys, is sitting at Mikko's desk with his laptop. "What's going on?"

Kerfoot looks up. "MacKinnon pulled me in on the Wilson murders," he says. "I'm running some stuff through a few different algorithms, trying to see if we get any pings."

Tyson winces. "Can we maybe not call them 'the Wilson murders?'"

"Take it up with the rest of your team," Kerfoot says, gesturing towards the meeting room. "Murder board's in there, and I think EJ's getting crazy with the pins, so if you want to stop him you should probably do that."

"Jesus," Tyson mutters, walking quickly towards the meeting room. Sure enough, EJ is putting coloured pins into the big map of Denver and its outlying areas. "Who let you have the pins?"

Mikko raises a hand, grinning at Tyson. "He offered!"

"You are the worst part of this team," Tyson informs him as seriously as he can. He turns to the murder board, ready to comment, but ends up frowning at it. "Wait, why are there four colours if we only have three cases?"

"We think we found the arson case," Nate says, holding up a file. "Yesterday. Either we're wrong, or this is an escalation timing-wise."

"Great," Tyson says. "Awesome. Just what I was hoping you'd say."

"I did mention that I could be wrong," Nate points out.

Tyson looks at him levelly. "Are you wrong?"

"I don't think so," Nate says, sighing. "Which means we have no idea what the timeline's going to be for the next Wilson murder."

"No, nope, stop," Tyson says, holding a hand up. "New name, different name. He's gonna be around, and just because he's not actively freaking out about everything doesn't mean it's a great idea to shove his face in the fact that his books are inspiring the whole thing."

"I said that, too," Mikko pipes up. "So I'm not the very worst, right?"

"Okay, you can be second-worst, and EJ can reclaim his throne at the bottom," Tyson says.

EJ fist-pumps, then puts another tack into the board. "We don't have a better name," he says, stepping back to survey it all. "It's the standard naming convention, Tys. Just because you've got a thing for our resident author buddy—"

"If someone was committing a series of crimes somehow based around your arrest record, we wouldn't be calling them 'the Johnson murders,'" Tyson cuts in. "We can be better than this."

Nate sighs. "We'll give it some thought," he promises. "Did Colin have anything to add? How's he doing?"

"Kind of scarily well, actually," Tyson says. "He didn't really have anything to tell me, but he was going to call his editor and agent as I was leaving. I'm kind of expecting the shock to wear off soon."

"Makes sense," Nate agrees. He hesitates a little, glancing at EJ before going on. "Look, you're not going to like what I have to say here."

Tyson feels his shoulders tighten. "What?"

"We have to rule him out as a suspect," EJ says bluntly, turning around and crossing his arms over his chest. "Which means that for a little while, we have to treat him like he's a suspect."

"You can't seriously think," Tyson starts.

Mikko cuts in. "If there were murders around EJ's arrest record, we would look into EJ, right?"

"I will be just as happy as you will to rule him out," Nate says, meeting Tyson's glare calmly and not looking away. "But we do have to clear him, and if that's not something you can do—"

"Don't threaten to take me off this case," Tyson says. "Do not."

Nate sighs. "I was going to say you should stick to the desk part of it," he says. "I wouldn't take you off of it unless you made it clear you were going to interfere, which I know you would never do, no matter the circumstances."

Tyson deflates a little. "Yeah," he says, glancing away. "Sorry. I'm just…"

"A little wound up," EJ says. "We should be able to check his alibis and clear him, okay? That should do it, and then we can just keep moving along."

Tyson frowns and turns to Nate. "Wait, did you ask him to sit in on the initial meeting to gauge his reaction?"

"No," Nate admits. "Gabe sort of read me the riot act over that, actually. I really did just want confirmation that it was based on his stuff, and since the source was right there…"

"He seemed very surprised," Mikko says. It helps the rest of the tension drain from Tyson's shoulders, and Mikko gives him a small smile. Mikko's a detective, sure, but he's also done a lot of the psych training, and he's pretty much a prodigy for suspect interviews. "My instinct says he didn't do this, Tyson, but we still have to check."

"Yeah, I know," Tyson says, pulling a chair away from the table and sitting heavily in it. He does, too, now that his first reaction is out of the way. "Someone else should do it, though. Not me."

"That's gonna be us," EJ says, gesturing at Mikko. "We might actually head over there later this—"

Tyson's phone starts ringing; the team has long since stopped teasing him about the fact that he's got his own ringtone for Colin, and nobody says anything as he yanks his phone from his pocket and answers it. "Hey, Colin—"

"Tyson," Colin says, voice a little high-pitched, a little panicked. "Something happened."

Tyson shoots out of his seat, already on his way towards the exit for the parking garage. "What is it? Are you okay?"

"I'm not hurt," Colin says. "My editor called, Tyson, she called back after I told her about what was going on."

"What did she say?" Tyson asks. He hears footsteps behind him and glances back to see Nate following him, a concerned look on his face.

"Someone hacked into their system," Colin says. "Whoever it is, they have a copy of my new book."

"Shit," Tyson breathes out. "So they have something else to work from."

"A lot of somethings," Colin says, taking a shuddering breath that stops just shy of being a sob. "Tyson, the next book—it's about a serial killer."

-0-

The Colin who opens the door to his apartment is a far cry from the smiling, composed guy who had sent Tyson on his way an hour and a half earlier. He looks legitimately freaked out now, and it's not like Tyson's glad to see it, but it does put more credence in the "he's not responsible for this" pile.

"Hey, hey," Tyson says gently, pushing the door open more and walking inside. "Colin, please breathe, okay? We're working on it, we are."

"I wrote a book about a serial killer, and now a serial killer who's basing things off of my books has it," Colin says. "I don't think I can be calm about this."

"That's totally fair," Nate says, closing the door behind himself. "Colin, I have a few really shitty questions to ask you, and I know this isn't a good time, but—"

Colin smiles thinly. "You need to make sure it's not me," he says. "I mean, this _is_ a shitty time, but… yeah."

Nate blinks. "Gotta admit, man, for a minute I forgot why you'd know that," he says.

"If I didn't know that, I don't think we'd be in this position," Colin says. He walks into his den and sits heavily on the sofa. "Come in, sit down. Ask me what you have to ask me."

"I thought we were letting EJ and Mikko do this," Tyson says, low.

Nate shrugs. "I don't think it's smart to wait," he says, tone just as quiet. "It'll look weird later on if we kept investigating without clearing him first."

Tyson sighs. "Yeah, I know."

"You can wait in the hallway," Nate offers.

"Nah, protocol says we should both be here," Tyson says. "You take the lead."

"Not often you say that," Nate says, giving Tyson a smile. "I've got this. No worries."

Colin smiles briefly as they finally walk over and sit. "Alibis, right?"

"Alibis," Nate confirms. "Just tell us what you remember, okay? It's our job to check everything out."

"Can I look at my notes?" Colin asks, gesturing to the pile of notebooks on the table. Tyson's familiar with them; Colin carries a notebook when he's shadowing them, and he keeps really meticulous notes about super boring stuff, like the order reports should be filed in and the different colours of paint used in interrogation rooms. They're also, Tyson remembers with sudden clarity, labelled by date.

"That's fine," Nate says, nodding. "First I need to ask about February 4, 2019, at 22:18. That's 10:18 PM."

Colin shrugs as he reaches for a notebook. "I don't remember. I was probably here, either working on the last edits of the book or getting ready for bed or something." He pauses. "By myself. That's right around when Roman and I, uh, agreed to split up."

Nate is taking notes; Tyson doesn't really need to do much, but he opens an app on his phone and puts Roman's name into it. It's the first time he's actually heard the guy's name; Colin is an interesting mix of outgoing and very private, and Tyson hadn't even known he was into guys until this morning, just that he'd been dating someone and then they'd broken up. Gay whale mug for the win, he thinks humourlessly.

"Okay," Nate is saying. "March 7, 2019, between noon and 2:15 PM."

"Definitely editing," Colin says, flipping through his notebook. "That was two days before my deadline. I can probably get some emails back and forth with my editor on that one, but again, I was alone."

"Okay," Nate repeats. "Next is March 26, 2019, between 11:15 AM and 6:30 PM."

Colin turns a few more pages. "Last Tuesday? I was with you guys," he says. "You were doing the Aronson interviews, and I was sitting in all day. I left for about ten minutes to pick up a Starbucks order, but that's it."

"Oh, hey, that _was_ Tuesday," Nate says, blinking. "Okay. One left. This one I know, but I have to ask. Yesterday, between 8:30 AM and 10:00 AM."

"You found the house fire," Colin says, closing his eyes briefly. "I was at the precinct yesterday morning. I don't know if you want me to put 'bitching about the weather' in an official police document, but that's definitely what we were doing."

"The Captain already knows," Tyson says, smiling at Colin. "Thanks for answering."

"Let me know if you need those emails or anything," Colin replies. He looks calmer without looking all the way calm; he's not outwardly panicking anymore, but he's gripping his notebook pretty tightly. "Or—or anything else. I have no idea what might be helpful, but I want to help if I can."

"Tell us about the other book," Tyson says, trying to gently redirect the conversation.

"Wait, before that," Nate says. "Your editor was hacked? You're sure?"

Colin nods. "She's sure, and that's sure enough for me," he says. "I told her what was going on, and she said she was going to do something with security, blah blah, and then she called to tell me that the security guys found evidence that they'd been hacked."

"We'll want to talk to her," Nate says. "Can you get us her number?"

"Sure," Colin says, pulling his phone out and tapping at the screen. "I told her you guys would probably be in touch, and that she has my permission to cooperate with whatever you need."

"Thanks," Nate says. His phone and Tyson's chime at the same time; Colin has airdropped the contact for a Stacey MacArtur to them. "And you said the book was about a serial killer?"

Colin nods. "Seven murders," he says, and Tyson sees his hands flex on the notebook cover. "Joelle is the only one who thinks they're connected at first, because they're all super different, and it turns out to be her ex. There's a whole showdown." He gestures vaguely, seemingly for something to do with his hand, and then returns to gripping at the notebook cover.

"You don't think," Nate starts.

"It wasn't Roman," Colin says firmly. "That would be a little too poetic, yeah, but also Roman once actually fainted when I hurt myself cutting potatoes. There's no way he'd be able to handle a real-life murder."

"Got it," Nate says, smiling. "Can you give us some more details about the new book? Some specifics, so we know what we're maybe facing down?"

"I can do much better than that," Colin says, finally leaning forward to put the notebook back on the coffee table. "I've got the files. Congratulations; you're about to become alpha readers."

-0-

"This is good and I hate it," EJ announces, frowning at his computer. EJ and Tyson are in charge of reading Colin's new book for possible information, and Tyson can't help but agree. Colin's writing is really engaging and easy to read, which is why he'd been able to convince Gabe to let him into the precinct to begin with. It means that everything about the serial killer in his newest book is incredibly, terrifyingly accurate, though, which is pretty bad news for their case.

Tyson sighs. "I mean, it could break everything really wide open," he says. "So far, our guy has stuck really closely to the scripts, so to speak. If he keeps doing it with these…"

"I really don't want seven more people to die," EJ says darkly. "Plus the kidnapping victim. This is going to be hell on wheels, Tyson."

"I know," Tyson says, rubbing at his forehead. "I _know_ that, EJ."

Mikko sighs. "We will just have to find him before then," he says. "Or maybe her. We don't know."

"Right, don't want to rule anyone out yet," Nate says. "Except Colin. You guys can interview him again if you want, but based on everything we've got, it's not him unless it's some sort of bizarre murder-for-hire scheme, and I have no idea what his motive would even be there."

"I think we're safe ruling him out for now," EJ agrees. "I wish we had a fucking clue, though. Maybe it's a crazy fan or something. We should ask the editor if he's gotten any super weird fan mail."

Mikko hums. "We can call in some other people. Kerfoot is still sifting through the data, and there's the new person in forensics."

Tyson brightens. "Wait, isn't there some kind of, like, wait list to get the new guy?"

"I think we get to skip the line for whatever resources we need right now," Nate points out. "Since, y'know, we're dealing with an active serial killer situation."

"I'll go see if he's available," EJ volunteers, standing from his desk. He takes a few steps, then frowns and pauses. "What's his name again?"

"Graves," Mikko says. "Richard, Ryan, Rasmus? Definitely Graves."

"Graves it is," EJ says, heading towards the stairs. "I can make sure we're next on his list if he's already in the middle of something."

"Awesome," Tyson says as EJ walks out. He turns to Nate. "Isn't this the, like, super observant guy who can tell what foods you know how to cook by watching you eat your lunch?"

"That's him," Nate confirms. "Apparently he knew enough about Barberio after two weeks to make everyone on beat think he was psychic."

Tyson snorts. "Man, sometimes I worry about the guys on beat."

"I mean, me too," Nate says, leaning back. "Did you hear that Jost and Compher finally got their shit together, and Kerfoot moved out of their house?"

"Huh," Tyson says. "Good for them. Sucks for Kerfoot, I guess."

Nate grins. "I don't know, man. I heard they're trying to get him to move back in."

"Of course they are," Tyson says, amused. "Leave it to the beat cops."

"Leave it to the beat cops," Nate agrees. "Hopefully Graves can see something we don't, though. I'd love to get any kind of lead going on this before the guy hits again."

Mikko clears his throat obnoxiously.

"Or her," Nate amends. "Whoever's behind this, I hope we find them soon."

Tyson nods and glances back at his computer screen; he's got two chapters left in the book, and the killer has been revealed and all of the murders have been committed. There's probably nothing in the end of it that's going to be relevant, but it's always possible, and Tyson also really just wants to finish reading it.

"Hey, Barrie," someone calls just as Tyson starts reading. He looks up and sees Soderberg, one of the veteran beat guys, walking towards him kind of quickly. "I need to talk to you."

"Sure," Tyson says, standing and trying not to frown. Soderberg is pretty much unflappable; Tyson's probably only seen the guy show more than a flicker of emotion maybe three times in the four years they've worked together. He looks a little spooked now, though, so Tyson doesn't hesitate to follow him into the meeting room.

"I saw something today," Soderberg says when they're out of earshot of the room at large. "I was reviewing some security camera footage for a smash-and-grab downtown, and I found something that I want to show you."

"Is it about our case?" Tyson asks, glancing at the murder board a few feet from them. "If so, we should get—"

"No," Soderberg cuts in, which is surprising enough to make Tyson click his mouth shut. Soderberg is, like, the most polite person Tyson has ever met on top of the whole unflappable thing. Whatever he saw has him freaked right the hell out, and Tyson's stomach is starting to go sour with possibilities.

"What is it?" he asks, leaning in. "What did you see?"

Soderberg sighs and pulls his phone out, tapping at the screen. A slight frown appears on his face; normally Tyson would rib him about being too old to understand how smartphones work, but his heart is beating kind of fast and he feels like trying to make a joke right now might be the wrong move anyway. He just waits, and finally Soderberg nods.

"There was a break-in at the Macy's in the Cherry Creek Shopping Center," Soderberg says. "Very amateur. They broke the windows, smashed display cases, grabbed what they could, and ran away again after. We didn't get any of the robbers' faces on the security camera, and they were in and out in under seven minutes."

"Okay," Tyson says slowly. "And…"

Soderberg hesitates for a moment. "There was someone else in there," he says. "Not part of the robbery. I was about to shut the footage off, because it was only about 45 seconds before our guys showed up, but then I saw movement, and when I looked…"

He holds his phone out, and Tyson steels himself before looking down.

There, smiling back up at him, face clearly visible in the frame, is Ryan O'Reilly. As Tyson watches, he smiles wider, then lifts a hand to wave at the camera before turning and strolling out of the frame. Tyson stares at it as it loops through again, then yet again.

"Tyson?" Soderberg's voice cuts in. "I can call MacKinnon if you need someone."

"No," Tyson says, staring down at the face of the man who had very nearly cost him his career, and had definitely cost him a bad case of heartbreak. Ryan smiles, waves, and turns; smiles, waves, and turns. "No, I'm—fuck."

"Yes," Soderberg agrees, tone solemn. "Fuck, indeed."

-0-

"Okay," EJ says, tone the scary kind of calm that usually precedes him tearing off after an armed suspect with nothing but speed and determination. He's staring at the footage that Soderberg had brought to Tyson as it loops on the monitor in Gabe's office. It's a slightly extended version; Tyson had asked Soderberg to send the footage to Nate, and Nate clipped the entire sequence, from the flutter of movement to Ryan disappearing off-screen. It's a little less than fifteen seconds in total. "Okay, so. What the fuck."

"I don't know," Tyson says, watching as Ryan smiles and waves again. He's going to be able to freeze-frame this whole thing in his brain by the time he leaves tonight. "I don't have any fucking idea, but I _do_ know I don't like it."

"Agreed," Nate says darkly. He'd been around during the end of Ryan's tenure as a cop, and Tyson knows he'd looked up to Ryan. He's probably the second most freaked out by this whole thing, but Tyson had been dating the guy, so he's keeping first place in that category all to himself.

"Can someone explain, please?" Mikko asks, glancing around. "EJ said that he was a cop here, and that something bad happened."

"He tried to frame Tyson for murder," Nate says shortly. "He stole drugs out of the evidence locker, he killed the guy who saw him doing it, and he set Tyson up to take the fall."

"And he was dating Tyson at the time, just to complete the picture there," EJ adds. "Last I knew, we were looking for him in Buffalo with no real luck."

"I heard he was haunting St. Louis for a while," Nate says. "Ditto on the lack of luck, though."

"He set me up and ran away," Tyson says quietly. "I have—I have _no_ idea why he thought that coming back here would be a good plan, but he clearly wants us to know that he's here."

Gabe has been sitting silently at his desk the whole time, arms crossed as he glares at the footage. "We're going to find him," he finally says, tone leaving no room for argument. "We're going to haul him in here and charge him with everything under the sun, and he's gonna face a full jury trial and he's going to _rot in jail_ for what he put this precinct through." His gaze flickers to Tyson before he looks back at the footage. "I know I can't make this your first priority, not with the whole 'serial killer on the loose' thing, but this is your second priority. Anything else can be delegated. This is your one-two right now."

"Got it," EJ says, something grim in his voice as he watches the loop play through again. He'd been EJ's partner, Tyson remembers. Maybe Nate's third down the list of people not thrilled about this whole thing.

"Do everything by the book," Gabs adds. "Everything needs to be completely above question. Once we have him, I don't want there to be anything that he could use to get away."

"We'll be careful," Mikko says. He's the only one here who doesn't know what it was really like, who wasn't here when Ryan was, but he can clearly see how important it is to everyone. It'll probably be good to have someone mostly impartial on the case, Tyson thinks. God knows the rest of them will be out for blood. Hopefully not literally, but Tyson's known EJ for years now, so… yeah.

There's not much left to add, not really, so they break and head back to their desks soon after. It's been an absolute hell of a day; Tyson can feel the headache creeping up behind his eyes, but there's no time for it right now, so he sits down and starts reviewing the serial murders. One-two, Gabe had said, and there's no way Tyson's going to be _grateful_ that there's someone out there murdering people based on the work of someone Tyson's really close to, but at least it means he can put off dealing with the Ryan situation for a little while.

"Hey," Tyson hears, and when he looks up, Gabe is giving him a strained smile. "I need to talk to you for a minute."

Or maybe he can't put if off, Tyson amends blearily, but this is like what they'd been saying earlier about Colin. Gabe needs to make sure he's not connected to Ryan, not involved in whatever he's here to stir up. It's shitty, but Tyson's too tired, too drained to be actually mad about it at the moment. It's probably better he talk to Gabe about it now than wait until he's had a chance to rest and process. It doesn't mean he _wants_ to, but it's not like Gabe had phrased it as a question.

"Yeah," he says, standing and nodding. "Okay. Where to?"

He's expecting the murder room, maybe, or an interrogation room, but Gabe walks back towards his office. It's only surprising for maybe half a second, and then Tyson remembers that he's dealing with Gabe, who was the youngest guy to ever make captain in Denver, who has his own way of doing things and only really cares about protocol when he really, really needs to. Of course he's going to question Tyson in his office. There's no way he'd want to make this any shittier for Tyson than it's already going to be.

Tyson follows Gabe to his office, shutting the door behind them and sitting in a chair. "Okay," he says, spreading his hands. "Ask away."

"I'll be as quick as I can," Gabe promises. "We already went through most of this in the aftermath of everything last time, so I really only have a few questions."

Tyson nods. "Let's get this over with so I can get back to tracking down the two thorns in my side," he says. "Whoever's murdering people and also my shitty ex."

Gabe snorts. "Man, most people who use that phrase have no idea."

"I hope they never have to find out," Tyson says as emphatically as he can. "I'm ready when you are. Let's do this."

-0-

Tyson decides on his way home that he's well within his right to call this one of the top ten shittiest days of his career, and that kind of thing definitely calls for what some coworkers who shall remain nameless have dubbed the Tyson Barrie Special. It doesn't take him long to get his order, and he doesn't think too hard about how he'd picked up something else, and how he's heading away from his own apartment and towards Colin's building. It's been a hell of a day for both of them, he reasons as he knocks on Colin's door.

Colin opens it a moment later, giving Tyson a tired smile. "I kind of wondered if you'd drop back over."

Tyson holds one of the cups out. "I brought sustenance."

It makes Colin laugh, which is nice, and he steps back and gestures inside. "I didn't know a Tyson Barrie Special counted as actual food."

"First of all, you should assume that if a thing is named after me, that makes it count the most," Tyson says as he walks in and kicks his shoes off. "And second, I'm still gonna get my revenge on Nate for telling you that's what he calls it. That's just rude."

Colin laughs again as he takes the Blizzard cup from Tyson. "A medium cookie dough Blizzard, extra cookie dough," he says, glancing down at the cup. "Except this is a large."

"My day did not get better after I left here earlier," Tyson says. He walks a few more steps into the apartment, then hesitates; this is his third time here, sure, but it's also his third time here _today_. He doesn't really have the full lay of the land, and he has no idea if Colin's the kind of guy who eats a Blizzard in his living room or if he takes it into the dining room.

Colin moves past him into the living room, which answers that question, and Tyson follows behind him. "Is whatever made your day even worse about to make my day worse?"

Tyson shakes his head as he sits on the sofa with Colin. "It's a little bit of a long story," he says. "But to make it shorter: my ex showed back up, and he's _super_ bad news."

Colin frowns. "Wait, I thought Jamie was a decent person." He pauses, then shakes his head, smiling a little ruefully. "And it's just now clicking that Jamie is guy-Jamie, not girl-Jamie. Way to play the pronoun game."

"The benefits of dating someone with a gender-neutral name," Tyson says, shaking his head. "Not Jamie, though. Before Jamie. Things ended with Ryan before you got here."

"You can tell me about it if you want," Colin offers, digging in.

Tyson frowns at his Blizzard, but it's not like there's any reason not to tell Colin what's going on; he's got all the clearances he needs to be around the precinct all the time, and he's probably going to hear about it before too much longer anyway. He takes a bite, trying to figure out where to start, then sighs. "So there was this guy I kind of had a crush on at the Academy," he says. "We graduated at the same time, but ended up assigned to different precincts. I actually bounced around a little bit before I landed here, but when I did, I found out it's where Ryan got assigned, too."

"Ryan," Colin says. "Does he have a last name?"

"O'Reilly," Tyson says. "We spent almost a year circling around each other before getting involved, and we were together for two years. It was… it was pretty serious." Tyson snorts. "Or I thought it was, anyway."

"What happened?" Colin asks.

Tyson shrugs and takes another bite of his Blizzard. "It turns out that he was actually a gigantic asshole," he says. "To the tune of stealing a bunch of drugs, fatally shooting a guy in the process, and setting me up to take the fall for it."

There's no response, and when Tyson turns, Colin is staring at him, Blizzard spoon in mid-air with a bite about to drop off the side. "Uh," Tyson says, gesturing. "You're gonna wear that."

Colin blinks, then puts his spoon back in his cup. "He set you up for theft and murder?" he asks, actually sounding furious. " _You_? As if you'd ever do anything like that!"

Tyson laughs, a little startled. "Well, yeah, definitely not," he agrees. "There was a whole investigation and everything, but they found me totally innocent. He skipped town pretty effectively, and he's been laying low enough that we haven't been able to catch him, but he's back now."

Colin makes a disgusted noise. "I hope you catch him and he goes to jail forever."

"Me too," Tyson agrees. "The whole situation is super shitty. The only thing we could find on him for four years were rumours of him maybe being in Buffalo, then maybe St. Louis, and then he waltzes into a crime scene and makes sure he gets caught on the security footage for a crime that our precinct is going to be investigating? He's here to stir up shit, and we've already got enough shit on our plates."

"We do," Colin agrees. "I'm so sorry, Tyson. That's awful."

"It's not great,” Tyson says, going for a smile. "I just wish—"

His phone starts ringing; he's technically off the clock, but Tyson has the kind of job where not answering the phone isn't really an option, so he pulls it out of his pocket. A glance at the screen tells him it's not a number in his contacts; he's about to toss it to the side when he notices that his caller ID is registering a number from Missouri.

"Tyson?" Colin asks gently. "What's—"

"Pull your phone out, start recording, and please don't say anything," Tyson says, glancing up at Colin. "I'm going to put this on speaker."

Colin's eyes are wide, but he's already tapping at his phone screen and nodding.

Tyson takes a deep breath and answers the phone, putting it on speaker immediately. "This is Detective Barrie," he says, hoping he's wrong, hoping he's the wrongest he's ever been in his life.

The laugh that rings out on the other side of the line makes Tyson's stomach drop heavily. "Oh, babe. Is that any way to answer the phone when I call?"

"Ryan," Tyson says, balling his hands into fists. "What the fuck."

"We haven't spoken in so long," Ryan says. "I wanted to catch up, see how you were doing—"

"Not in jail, no thanks to you, asshole," Tyson says. "Remember when you murdered that guy and set me up for it?"

"I did a bad set-up job on purpose, babe," Ryan says. "Enough to cover my getaway, but I knew they'd never actually blame you for it."

"We're going to find you," Tyson says. "You're going to jail."

Ryan laughs again. "Maybe, maybe not. I guess we'll see, eh?"

"Why are you here?" Tyson asks, closing his eyes. "Why the fuck are you calling me?"

"To see if you figured out why I was here," Ryan says. "I really just wanted to talk, babe."

"You really just need to never call me that again, O'Reilly," Tyson says. "You didn't honestly think that you'd show up here again and that I'd, what, want to get back together?"

"A man can dream," Ryan says. "I thought maybe—"

"Let me remind you about the whole part where you _murdered a man in cold blood,_ " Tyson cuts in. "His name was Joshua Serraro. He had a wife, two young kids, and you shot him three times in the chest."

Ryan sighs. "People make mistakes."

Tyson barks out a laugh. "You're shitting me right now. People make mistakes on their _taxes_ and shit. You don't _accidentally_ murder someone and _accidentally_ set someone else up to take the blame and _accidentally_ run away for four fucking years!"

"I mean, I guess you've moved on anyway," Ryan says, and Tyson shakes his head, trying to clear his mind enough to follow and not just get lost in yelling at Ryan until he feels better. There's no way he has enough phone battery left for that, anyway.

"What the fuck," Tyson says. "You thought I'd still be hung up on you?"

"A man can dream," Ryan repeats, an eerily perfect echo of how he'd said it before. "Didn't think you'd go for a blond, Tys. Really?"

It feels like Tyson's blood freezes in his veins as he jerks his head up and looks at Colin. He's staring right back at Tyson, face paler than Tyson's ever seen it, worse even than when they'd discovered the murders earlier in the day. "So we can add stalking to your list of crimes," Tyson manages, grateful that his voice is coming out mostly normally. "Also, I'm not dating him. Or anyone else, so whatever sick, weird revenge thing you've got planned—"

Ryan laughs, and this time he keeps doing it, laughing and laughing until Tyson can see Colin's fingernails biting into his palms. "Oh, babe," he says, voice sounding almost fond. "I know what I'm doing, and I know how I'm doing it, and you've always been a terrible liar."

"What," Tyson starts, but his phone beeps quietly, letting him know that Ryan ended the call.

There's silence for a moment, and then Colin's phone makes a noise. Tyson jerks his gaze up to see Colin tapping at his screen again, and a moment later, Tyson's phone buzzes as Colin sends him the recording.

"I'm guessing you need to get that to the precinct," Colin says, giving Tyson a strained, wobbly smile. "And I'm really hoping you don't mind if I ask to tag along, since apparently your ex is not only a murdering asshole, but also a crazy stalker who thinks I'm replacing him."

"Yeah, let's get going," Tyson says, standing up. "We'll figure everything out, Colin, I swear. I'm so sorry this is happening while everything else is happening."

"When it rains, it pours," Colin says with a tired, unhappy laugh, and Tyson can't disagree.

-0-

"Wait," EJ says, narrowing his eyes. "Fucking—rewind that. Ten seconds back."

Tyson would feel bad about pulling his team back in after the day they've all had, but a case is a case, and pretty much everyone involved has a personal stake in the whole Ryan shitshow anyway. It's important that they all have the most up-to-date details on everything as soon as they can, anyway, and nobody had complained when Gabe had called them back to the station.

Kerfoot rewinds it and hits play again, and Tyson takes slow, even breaths as Ryan's voice comes over the speakers. It doesn't even have the decency to sound tinny or distorted like a nice, old-fashioned phone recording did; damn modern technology anyway.

" _—sick, weird revenge thing you've got planned_ ," Tyson hears himself say.

Ryan's laugh starts up, and it seems to go on forever. It's creepy as hell, and Tyson's got the feeling that it's not going to get less creepy with more exposure. " _Oh, babe_ ," Ryan says again. " _I know what I'm doing, and I know how I'm doing it, and you've always been a terrible liar._ "

"That," EJ says, pointing to the computer. "Fucking _O'Reilly_ , holy fucking shit."

"Johnson," Gabe says. "Words."

"It's him," EJ says, finally letting his finger fall. "Shit, he—he's been back for a little while, yeah? He'd have to be, to figure out how to let us know that he's here."

"He maybe set up the robbery," Mikko says, frowning slightly. "So he knew the timing."

Nate nods. "Makes sense," he says, "but what does that have to do with—"

"No," EJ interrupts. "Or, I mean, yes, but it's _him_. He knows what he's doing and he knows how he's doing it, and this is right after he mentions that he knows about Colin?"

There's silence for a moment, and Tyson tries to breathe through the pieces clicking into place. "EJ," he says faintly.

"Tys," EJ replies, tone grim. "It's no secret that Colin's worked with the precinct, and it's no secret that you guys are friends. And Colin, you just got done with that book tour a few months ago; your face was everywhere."

"It was," Colin says, sounding faint. "So he shows back up here, sees me hanging out with Tyson, decides I'm in his way or something, and starts committing murders based on my books?"

"It makes sense," Mikko says when EJ doesn't answer. "We don't have proof yet, but it's a very good theory."

"We won't find proof until we catch him in it," EJ says flatly. "He was a cop. He knows better, and he's had the upper hand so far. He probably only showed up at that robbery because we hadn't already caught on. What an absolute _fucker_."

"That, uh," Colin says. Tyson looks over and has to stop himself from reaching out; it's probably the combined stresses of the murders and Ryan knowing who he is, but he looks like he's about three seconds away from totally freaking out. Tyson can't blame him at all. "That's not exactly good news, EJ."

"Sorry," EJ says. He doesn't really have a good talking-to-victims voice, but he manages to make his face a little less threatening. "I mean, we know what we're looking for, right? So we can hopefully track him down soon."

Colin laughs weakly. "I hope so," he says. "Because if I was writing this book, the disgraced ex-cop who comes back and starts committing a series of murders based on his ex-partner's new... new partner, the last victim would absolutely be the new partner."

"That's not happening," Nate says firmly. "No fucking way, Colin. We're not going to let him touch you."

Colin smiles, but it looks kind of weak. "Thanks, Nate, but I'm pretty sure you can't promise that."

"Watch me," Nate says, and he gives Colin a fierce smile. "We'll get a security detail for your apartment. Only guys we trust completely, guys who we can fill in about the whole situation without letting it leak out. You can work here every day, instead of just twice a week, and we'll escort you in and out. He won't be able to touch you."

"You can just stay with me," Tyson says, mouth moving without much input from the rest of his body. Or brain, for that matter.

Colin turns to him quickly, and the look on his face is full of pure relief. "Really? That's—Tyson, I don't want to impose. The security detail—"

"No, that's actually a lot better," Gabe cuts in. He throws Tyson a glance he can't interpret at all, but Tyson knows enough to figure out that it means he and Gabe will be having a conversation before Tyson gets out of here again. "It'll keep you close and safe, and it'll free up resources that we can use to actually track Ryan down."

"I've got a spare room," Tyson says, nodding. His palms are sweating a little, and it's definitely gross, but it's out there now, and there isn't anything _wrong_ with the idea of Colin staying with him. Tyson can put aside his—feelings, whatever, because Colin is first and foremost a friend, and he's a friend who's in some pretty serious trouble right now. "We can swing back by your apartment so you can grab whatever you need, and then we'll get you set up at my place."

Colin slumps down a little in his seat, like he's been running on panic alone and Tyson removing some of that means he's lost the ability to sit up straight. "Thank you,” he says, soft but heartfelt. "Tyson, I— _thank_ you."

"It's his crazy ex who's stalking you, so it's the least he could do," Mikko says cheerfully.

Tyson glares, but it makes everyone else laugh, so he guesses he can deal with it.

-0-

Tyson sort of feels like he should be filling the silence in the car, but Colin is staring out the window, so it's probably safe to let the quiet hang in the air. It gives Tyson time to think, anyway, about what Gabe had said after pulling Tyson into his office, all the stuff about having a plainclothes officer as the security guy in Tyson's building and about making sure they both had access to a panic button. It's stuff that will probably make Tyson feel better in the long run, but right now it's a lot of white noise swirling around in his head, because all he can fixate on at the moment is the fact that he's not sure he changed the sheets on the spare bed after the last time his sister had visited. It's the kind of silly, inconsequential thing that lets him breathe through the fact that he's going to have Colin under his roof, and even though the circumstances are so far from ideal that it's not funny, Colin's going to be in his living room and his kitchen and his spare bedroom, sleepy and soft in the mornings, and—

Tyson clears his throat. "So, since we're not sure how long this is going to be for, you should probably grab enough stuff to keep you going for a week. Maybe a little longer."

"Yeah," Colin says. He shifts and shoots Tyson a tired smile. "I was thinking I'd just pack like I was doing another leg of the book tour. I'm pretty used to that, and as long as you guys haven't gone back on the policy of not caring if I wear jeans to the precinct on days we're not going into the field, it'll probably be the most comfortable option."

"That should be fine," Tyson assures him. "I've got, like, towels and stuff. There's only one bathroom, so we'll have to share that, but you can use whatever's there or bring your own, whatever."

It's entirely possible, Tyson thinks, that he's babbling about toiletries. It might even be probable, but Colin's smiling, so Tyson's just going to roll with it.

"And bring your gay whale mug," Tyson adds, because rolling with it has never once worked for him in his life, so he has no idea why he expected this to be the time that changed.

Colin laughs outright, and when Tyson glances over, there are tiny lines crinkled around his eyes. He quickly looks back at the road, only half because it's kind of a bad idea to not do that while you're driving. "I'll bring the mug," Colin promises. "I might even let you drink out of it again."

"I'd be honoured," Tyson says as seriously as he can manage.

It's a smooth drive back to Colin's place from there; it's not like it had been awkward to that point, but the last five minutes still feel better than the twenty before that had. It's Colin's smile, Tyson decides. It just brightens everything, and that's absolutely a thought he can keep in his head and not let his mouth run away with.

The good mood lasts until they get to Colin's apartment, because when Colin puts his key into the lock and turns it, the door swings open without the lock clicking over.

"What the fuck," Tyson says, every job-related instinct he's ever cultivated jumping into hyperfocus all at once. He grabs Colin's wrist and pulls slightly. "Behind me. Now."

Colin frowns at him, but Tyson tugs, and Colin doesn't argue. It's a good thing, too, because when Tyson pushes the door open and steps inside, he can see a figure sitting on Colin's sofa, back to the door, watching something on the television that they definitely hadn't left on when they'd gone back to the precinct earlier.

"Stand up slowly," Tyson says, keeping his voice as calm as he can. He knows without a word being said who it is, would know the slope of those shoulders and the back of that head anywhere even if he hadn't already been warned that Ryan was back in town.

Ryan raises both hands up, laughing quietly as he stands and turns to face Tyson. "Aw, you're ruining all my fun, babe. Can't I size up the competition without supervision?"

"This is very clearly breaking and entering, so that's a no," Tyson says. "Also, if you think I'm actually going to believe that you weren't here to do more than just say hi—"

Ryan laughs louder this time, lowering his hands to rest on his hips. "You used to trust me."

Tyson wants to fling his hands up into the air, but he resists. "You used to not be a murdering asshole. People change."

The smile Ryan gives him starts slow, but grows across his face until Tyson can see his teeth. It is, Tyson decides, entirely creepy. "Oh, babe, you still think you knew me before I killed anyone? That's _real_ cute."

Tyson had been standing still already, but now he feels rooted to the ground. Fuck Ryan all over again for still being able to pull the rug out from under him, Tyson thinks a little wildly. "Well, that's something we can for sure talk about," he says, and thank god for every ounce of training he's had in his life, because it comes out steadily. "Why don't we go down to the precinct? I'm sure EJ would love to catch up with you."

Ryan laughs again, and Tyson's getting pretty goddamn sick of that sound. "I think EJ might want to introduce his fist to my face," he says. "I think I'll pass."

"I think he might actually want to punch you in the dick, but you'd probably have to ask him to make sure," Colin says from behind Tyson, and it's not that Tyson had forgotten he was there, but he'd very desperately hoped that Colin would have had the sense to stay in the goddamn hallway. "For what it's worth, I'd really, really love to see that."

Ryan stops laughing abruptly and tilts his head back, staring directly at Colin. "So," he drawls. "You're the author."

"And you're the ex," Colin says evenly. "Gotta say, man, I'm not impressed."

The grin is back on Ryan's face, and Tyson hates it more than he knows how to handle. "Oh, but _I'm_ impressed," he says. "Not that I think you're an upgrade, but—"

Colin snorts loudly. "My murder count is entirely fictional, so I'm gonna go ahead and say I have the high road here."

Ryan starts walking slowly around the sofa and Tyson mirrors every step, pivoting to keep himself between Ryan and Colin. "I don't think I like you," Ryan says, like it's some kind of revelation.

"Same," Colin says decisively. "Although I think I'll skip the part where I break into wherever you're living to let you know about it."

Ryan shakes his head. "How else was I supposed to—"

There have been sirens in the distance, but there are always sirens in the distance; Denver's a nice city, as cities go, but it's still a city. It's not like the sirens have been getting noticeably louder quickly, but when the loudest ones suddenly cut out, Tyson figures everything out pretty fast. Ryan does, too; just because he's no longer a cop doesn't mean he never was one.

"Oh, and that'll be the backup I called in," Colin says, voice far too casual. "Whoops. Did I not mention I was having more people over?"

Any trace of humour or congeniality on Ryan's face is wiped out in an instant as he swears. His eyes go wild, and he starts running straight for Tyson and Colin. Tyson reacts on pure instinct, turning and jumping back towards Colin, knocking both of them out of the way as Ryan leaps over their tumbling forms and disappears down the hallway.

"Well," Colin says as Ryan's footsteps thunder down the hallway. He's shaking, Tyson notices. Adrenaline crash, or shock, and either way Tyson needs to make sure he's safe and let whoever's in the squad car downstairs handle the Ryan situation. "I kind of thought they'd know that they should cut the sirens earlier."

"And I'm definitely going to have a talk with whoever the fuck is in that car," Tyson says, climbing to his feet. He closes and locks Colin's apartment door before turning and offering him a hand up. "Thanks for calling for help. Please stay in the hallway if this ever happens again, though."

Colin's laugh is unsteady. "I feel like I'm going to move," he says, glancing at his sofa. "Maybe I'll leave all the furniture behind and just buy new stuff."

"Fair," Tyson agrees. "For now, though, let's get some stuff packed up, and you can come back to mine with me, okay? He's sure as hell not getting in there."

"Okay," Colin says, nodding sort of like a bobblehead. "Can I—you can say no, but I sort of feel like I need a hug right now?"

"I can do that," Tyson says, stepping into Colin's space and wrapping his arms around Colin's torso. "You did good, okay? I'm—shit, Colin, I'm sorry about all of this. You're handling it all really well."

Colin hugs Tyson back and doesn't say a word, just stands there swaying with him, and Tyson—Tyson just lets him have the moment.

-0-

Ryan gets away, because of course he does; it wouldn't be a true Colin Wilson-style novel if the bad guy got caught so quickly. It's almost a funny thought, except it means that Ryan's still out there, so Tyson brings Colin back to his apartment like they'd originally planned.

"So this is it," Tyson says as they walk into his apartment. He's not ashamed of it by any means; it's a nice enough place, even if it is a little small, and the security is good. It's even mostly clean, which isn't always a given, so Tyson thinks it's probably a decent showing, all told.

Colin takes his shoes off in the entryway before following Tyson in. "Nice," he offers. "Where should I put my bag?"

"Here," Tyson says, leading him down the hallway. He peeks in quickly and finds that the bed is bare; not ideal, probably, but at least this way he doesn't have to wonder if they're the same sheets Victoria slept on. "I've got clean sheets. Give me a minute and I'll put them on for you."

"Thank you," Colin says, and he sounds exhausted. "Is it bad that I kind of want to go to sleep even though it's barely nine?"

"You've had a hell of a day," Tyson says. He'd love to be able to laugh it off, but the best he can manage is a weak smile. "Bathroom's across the hall if you want a shower or just to brush your teeth or whatever. I won't judge you if all you can manage is mouthwash and then crashing."

"I'm gonna go for the full teeth-brushing experience, but that's good to know," Colin says, setting his suitcase down and bending over to unzip it. "I'll be back in a few, and I'll help you make the bed."

"Don't worry about it," Tyson says. "I can manage to make one bed a day, and since it definitely wasn't mine, I'll handle yours."

It gets Colin to chuckle quietly, which is probably the best Tyson could hope for, under the circumstances. He grabs a few things out of his suitcase and walks out of the room, and Tyson busies himself with getting the sheets wrestled onto the bed. He's glad that he has several sets; now that he's putting clean sheets on, he remembers taking the old ones off, but he's at least 90% sure that they're still in the hamper beside the washer.

"Hey, thanks," Colin says, reappearing as Tyson is pulling the pillowcase over the last pillow. It's a good thing he's holding something in his hands, because it means he has something to clutch at when he glances over. Colin's in pajamas, a pair of Avs sweatpants and a plain gray tee, and he's wearing a pair of black-framed glasses. It's a lot to handle, if Tyson's being honest, and just because he'd sort of pictured it before doesn't mean he's in any way equipped to handle the reality of it. Colin has a faint smile on his face, and Tyson makes himself look back down at the pillow, fluffing it a few times before setting it at the head of the bed.

"No problem," Tyson says, probably too brightly for the entire day they just had. "All set and ready."

Colin's smile widens a little. "I see that."

"Right," Tyson says. "I'll just… I should get ready to go to bed, too. Hell of a day, all that jazz."

"It was," Colin agrees, shoulders dropping a little. "You, uh. You said someone was going to sub in as your security person, right?"

"Yeah, absolutely," Tyson says. "The guy down there right now is Sheldon Dries. He's on the night shift. Really, really solid guy, and a good cop. He'll be here all night, and he's switching with Nikita in the morning, and there's a whole schedule after that. We'll have 24/7 coverage of the entrance so we won't get surprised like that again."

"Good," Colin says. "Is it bad of me to say that I feel better knowing Nikita's going to be here? He's like the nicest semi truck ever, but I also saw him flying tackle that guy into a wall during the insurance fraud case."

Tyson laughs. "Nikita's a good guy to have on your side, yeah," he says. "A lot of the guys on this detail will be younger guys, or maybe people you don't know as well. We have to make sure they're people Ryan didn't work with while he was here, so it limits our options."

"Yeah, having Nate there would probably ruin the surprise," Colin says. "And I wasn't actually lying about EJ wanting to dick punch him earlier. I'm pretty sure that's true."

"I'm pretty sure you're right," Tyson says. "I feel like there might be a line forming for that at this point, honestly."

"Probably," Colin says. "I'm gonna want to get on that line, but I'm happy to be near the end of it."

Tyson raises an eyebrow. "I think you get to skip to pretty near the front at this point."

"Maybe," Colin acknowledges. "We can figure out the exact order later, though. I really think I want to sleep for at least nine hours right now, if that's okay."

"Sure, yeah," Tyson says, stepping away from the bed. "I usually leave right around eight so I can stop for coffee on the way in."

"Okay," Colin says. "I'll be ready."

"Okay," Tyson echoes. This feels more awkward than he thought it could, which is saying something, because Tyson sometimes feels like the king of awkward. "G'night."

"Night," Colin says. "And hey, Tyson?"

"Yeah?" Tyson asks.

"Thanks again," Colin says, voice soft. "I do actually know that this isn't the normal way things are handled, since I've been studying your precinct for the past four years."

Tyson laughs, barely staving off the instinct to bury his hands in his pockets. No way would that make things any less awkward. "It's no problem, Colin, I swear."

"Still," Colin says, shrugging a little. "I feel like I should keep saying thanks, since I know this is a pretty big imposition."

"How about this?" Tyson says. "You stop thanking me, and I'll stop apologising about my crazy ex."

"Fair trade," Colin says, and he's smiling like he thinks Tyson is funny again, which is really going to go to Tyson's head if he keeps doing it while leaning back against the wall next to the art that Tyson had picked up at IKEA because his mother had complained that the walls were too bare. Tyson knows what his spare room looks like with Colin in it now, lit by the lamp on the bedstand and soft-edged from the hall light, and even the shitty day they've both had isn't enough to make Tyson not notice it.

"I'm just gonna," Tyson says, and he doesn't really make a break for it, but he does leave without saying anything else, slipping past Colin through the doorway and taking the five steps it takes to get to his room quickly before shutting the door behind him.

Just because Nate isn't here to laugh at him in person doesn't mean Tyson doesn't hear it in his head anyway, and Tyson scowls at himself as he gets ready to go to bed.

-0-

Gabe looks like he hadn't slept at all, and Tyson honestly wouldn't be surprised if that was actually the case. "Barrie," he says as Tyson and Colin walk in, Compher a shadow behind them. Gabe nods at Compher, who nods back before disappearing, probably to go back down to the bullpen. "And Colin. How was your night?"

"I only woke up from nightmares three times, so it could have been worse," Colin says, putting his laptop bag on Tyson's desk. "Tyson's a great host."

"Good, glad to hear it," Gabe says, giving Colin a brief smile. "If you're up for it today, Graves asked if he could talk to you, get your take on everything that happened yesterday. He can sometimes pick up on things the rest of us can't."

"He's not psychic, but we keep testing him anyway," Mikko adds. "He just notices everything."

Colin laughs. "Sure, I can do that."

Gabe gets Colin settled in an interview room with Graves before coming back to where Tyson's sitting at his desk. "We've got those panic buttons ready," he says, fishing an envelope out of his back pocket and putting it on Tyson's desk. "Not that I think Ryan's going to pull the same shit twice, so they're probably a completely moot point, but I'd rather you guys have them than not."

"Agreed," Tyson says, opening the envelope. The buttons are small and pretty nondescript; they look like tiny car unlocking buttons, which is probably the entire point. "Just click and wait, right?"

"Right," Gabe says. "There's a GPS locator in each one, so we'll be able to find you as long as it's intact. Try not to sit on it, okay?"

"Ha, ha," Tyson says, rolling his eyes as he puts it onto his keyring and making a mental note to make sure Colin does the same later. "Any updates from last night?"

"No," Gabe says, sighing heavily. "We're still not sure how he managed to get out of the building, but we swept every nook, cranny, and stairwell, and we scoured the roof. He just disappeared."

Tyson frowns. "There are only four exit points for Colin's building. How the hell did he get by us?"

"No idea," Gabe says, sitting in the chair by Tyson's desk. "I swear, Tys, we looked everywhere. We kept people posted at each exit while others searched inside. There's no way he got out, except that he wasn't inside, either."

"We checked literally everywhere," EJ adds. "I mean _everywhere_ that he could have been. He wasn't in the dumpsters, the public restroom, the mail room, any hallway or stairwell or anything."

"We did door-to-doors," Nate says. "We got about a fifty percent answer rate, and nobody had seen him."

Tyson rubs at his face. "So he's a magician now, too."

"I doubt it," Kerfoot says, and when Tyson turns, Kerfoot's standing near Nate's desk, a few papers in his hand. "Barrie, do you think you'd still be able to recognise O'Reilly's handwriting?"

"Yes," Tyson says instantly. "Why, what did you find?"

"A lease application," Kerfoot says. He walks over and lays the papers down on Tyson's desk. "It was approved three days ago for a one-month rental the floor below Colin."

"Shit," Tyson breathes out. The name isn't Ryan's, but the signature for Roger O. Robinson is a perfect match for Ryan's messy signature. "I'm guessing there was no answer at 516 when you guys knocked yesterday?"

"There sure wasn't," Nate says grimly. "Which means he was in there laughing at us."

"Fuck," EJ says vehemently. "And if we go there now, there won't be anything to find."

"Only one way to find out," Tyson says. "Who's going, Landy?"

Gabe rolls his eyes a little, but Tyson ignores it; they were rookies together, sort of, and just because Tyson respects the hell out of Gabe as his captain doesn't mean he isn't going to remind him about being fresh-faced and even blonder when they met. "Rantanen and Johnson. Take someone from forensics with you, but secure the scene before you let them in."

"Dibs on the Scrivenses," EJ says as he stands. "Also, congratulating you again on hiring Jen's husband even though it could have been weird. They're the best."

"They are," Gabe agrees. "Keep in contact. Anything weird happens, evac and we'll figure out another way to deal with it, okay? I don't want anyone getting hurt, and I don't think nostalgia's gonna keep Ryan from lashing out."

"I think nostalgia is what's making him lash out, actually," Mikko says. "Sorry, Tyson."

"You're not wrong," Tyson mutters as EJ and Mikko head for the exit. "Also, I'm super not talking Colin out of finding a new apartment, holy shit."

"Just keep him with you until we get our hands on Ryan," Nate says. "And if you need a break, let me know. I can clear out the spare room."

Tyson looks up, already bracing himself for the chirp, but there's nothing but honest concern on Nate's face. Tyson forgets, sometimes, that Nate's his best friend underneath all the bullshit and teasing that goes on in the precinct. It's always comforting to be reminded.

"Thanks," Tyson says after maybe a beat too long. "So far so good on that front, but… thanks." Nate smiles at him, earnest and friendly, and Tyson smiles back for a moment before turning back to Gabe. "So are we back to square one with regards to finding him?"

"We don't have to be," Kerfoot interjects. Tyson definitely forgot he was still there, but Kerfoot thankfully just smirks for a second before going on. "Let me get my laptop and bring it up here. I don't have anything I'm going to stake my career on, but I might have found stuff that's useful to you guys. At the very least, we can fix the murder board while Johnson isn't here to whine about colour coding."

"Don't touch the murder board unless you want to end up on the murder board," Nate says. "That's the first rule of murder board."

Kerfoot snorts. "I'll take my chances."

"Good luck," Tyson says solemnly. "Make sure you drop off whatever you found here with us first, so we can review it while EJ supervises you redoing the murder board to his exact specifications when he comes back and finds out that you fucked with it."

"Are all the detectives this dramatic?" Kerfoot asks, turning to Gabe. "I swear we're not all this bad down in forensics."

"You'll get there," Gabe says. "It's a seniority thing, I think."

"I quit," Kerfoot says lightly, taking a step away from Tyson's desk. "This is my twenty-year notice. I'm definitely quitting."

Gabe laughs. "Resignation not accepted," he says. "Go get your laptop so we can get shit done."

-0-

Tyson isn't exactly tracking the time, but it's probably not more than 45 minutes after EJ and Mikko leave when Gabe's phone rings. He looks at the screen before frowning and answering it. "Hey, EJ, what's—"

Gabe goes silent, and Tyson glances up at him. He stares at nothing for a minute, then stands and strides towards his office. He doesn't close the door behind himself, so when Tyson hears Nate get up to follow, he does the same.

"—photo, right now," Gabe is saying when Tyson walks in. "Did the Scrivenses pick anything up?"

EJ says something too indistinct for Tyson to make out, and Gabe nods tightly. "I'll call the governor's office. Send me a clear photo of the note now, and then continue with your investigation there." He hangs up the call, then turns to look at Nate and Tyson, face grim. "Ryan left us a note."

"A note," Tyson echoes. "What kind of note?"

"The kind of note that lets us know where we should be looking for our kidnapping victim," Gabe replies. "Which means that it's probably already too late to prevent it, but hopefully we can change the ending."

"Shit," Nate breathes. He glances out of the office, and Tyson doesn't have to check to know he's looking at the room where Graves and Colin have been holed up for an hour now.

"The governor's office, you said," Tyson says, trying not to think about having to break the news to Colin. "Is it—Ryan's kidnapping _the governor_?"

"No," Gabe says. "One of his aides, maybe someone who works for him. There's no name in the note, but the wording makes it pretty clear that it's not Polis himself. EJ said there's something on the back of the paper, too, but he hadn't flipped it over yet. He was waiting for the Scrivenses to work their magic, but he's gonna send a photo of the front now so we know where to start."

Gabe's phone dings; the timing is too perfect, and Tyson would make a joke if his stomach didn't feel like lead again. Gabe opens it immediately, frowning down at it. " _I'm feeling generous, so I'm gonna assume that you'll find this,_ " he reads. " _The governor is going to find himself a little short-staffed today. Maybe forever, but that depends on you guys._ "

"Fucker," Nate spits out.

Gabe makes a noise in his throat, then looks up at Tyson. "He, uh. EJ got the Scrivenses to flip the paper over."

Tyson feels like his heart is going to break his ribcage with how hard it's beating. "What? What is it?"

Gabe holds his phone out, and Tyson doesn't let his hand tremble as he takes it. Ryan had drawn a little doodle of a house with double front doors, which is a weird detail, but he'd scrawled something beneath it, too.

_Had to change my plans when you interrupted the original kidnapping, babe!_

"That's," Tyson says, the word creaking weirdly. "He… he was going to take Colin?"

Nate swears viciously. "Can I shoot him? I'm gonna _shoot_ him."

"Tyson," Gabe says. "Hey, man. Sit down."

"He was going to take Colin," Tyson repeats, and now that the uncertainty and the nausea are retreating, there's mostly just fury boiling in his veins. "Nate, you can't shoot him, because _I'm_ going to shoot him."

"You can go first," Nate says. "We might need to write down the order."

"Nobody shoot him," Gabe cuts in. "Unless he does something to provoke it when you're bringing him in. We need to do this completely by the book, remember?"

"Gabe," Nate says, voice flat. "If you think any one of us is going to stop Tyson from shooting him—"

"I won't shoot him," Tyson says. "Unless he really, really deserves it."

Gabe sighs. "That's all I can ask for, I guess," he mutters, pushing his hand through his hair. He glances out of his office, and Tyson bets he's looking to see if Colin and Graves are done yet. "Listen, I can break it to him."

"No," Tyson says quickly. "No, I'll do it."

"Are you sure?" Gabe asks. "You don't have to, Tyson."

"I'll do it," Tyson repeats. "It should come from me. This whole thing is sort of my fault, so—"

"No, nope, shut your whole face up," Nate says firmly. "This is O'Reilly's fault, and if Colin doesn't get to blame himself because he wrote the books, then you don't get to blame yourself because you and Colin are… friends."

Tyson doesn't miss the pause before the end of Nate's sentence, but he doesn't need to ask what Nate decided not to say. He appreciates the change in word choice, anyway. "Fine," he says. "You win this one."

"I win one!" Nate says, pumping his fist in the air. "Finally. It's taken _years_."

"Don't get used to it," Tyson says. He's smiling a little against his better judgement. "How much longer do you think they're going to be?"

"Not long, probably," Gabe says. "They've been in there for a while, and Graves is usually pretty good at knowing when we need him to cut things off."

"He's not actually psychic," Nate says. "He won't know if we don't—"

The door of the meeting room opens, and Graves and Colin walk out.

Tyson laughs and tries to pass it off as a cough, but he's not sure it works. "You sure, buddy?"

"No," Nate says grumpily. "Like. Mostly yes, but not all the way yes, so… no."

"Right," Tyson says. He's amused for about three seconds before remembering that he has to go talk to Colin, to tell him that Ryan had planned on kidnapping him instead of whoever he grabbed from the governor's office. There's no way it's going to be anything other than awful, but there's also no use in putting it off, so Tyson sighs. "Okay, here I go."

"I'll get lunch for you both," Nate promises as Tyson walks away, and that's why Nate's his best friend.

-0-

Colin takes it about as well as he can, which is to say that he goes pale and starts shaking a little, but he doesn't throw up. "I'll reread _Hello Operator_ and see if I can figure anything out," he says after Tyson gives him a few minutes to recover. "I'm… hopefully I can help."

"It's okay if you can't," Tyson says, keeping his voice gentle. "It's okay if you need some time, too. You can head back to my place if you'd rather, and we can send Andrighetto or—"

"Tyson," Colin says, and he gives Tyson a strained, tired smile. "If I don't focus on fixing this, I'm going to obsess about how I caused it. Please."

"Yeah, okay," Tyson says, giving in instantly. He knows how he'd react if it was him, and he and Colin aren't that different when it comes down to it. "You can be Mikko until he and EJ get back, okay?"

"I'm not anywhere close to tall enough," Colin says, and this time the smile is a little more real.

"We can't all be big Finnish giraffes," Tyson says, standing. "Thankfully."

"Thankfully," Colin agrees. "Okay. I'll get reading, you get doing whatever you can do to find that aide."

"Sounds like a plan," Tyson says as they head out of the meeting room.

Mikko texts an hour after lunch to say that they're done, but that the Scrivenses are still processing things on scene, and given the nature of the case, he and EJ are going to stay. It's a good idea; EJ and Mikko can throw ideas around where they are just as easily as they could if they were back at the precinct, so it's not like they can't be off-site, and making sure there's someone with the Scrivenses if Ryan shows back up is an excellent plan. Not that Tyson doesn't think that Jen would try to take Ryan down, but he'd rather not know if Ryan's turned into the kind of person who would attack a former coworker because she got in his way.

He's pretty sure he already knows the answer to that one, honestly.

It means that it's pretty quiet in the precinct as they all work on separate pieces of the same puzzle; Colin is reading _Hello Operator_ at light speed, Tyson is calling everyone who had called out of work at the governor's office today, and Nate is pulling together home addresses for the ones who aren't answering and then sending squad cars out. They're whittling down the number of possibilities, and Tyson's pretty sure that they'll have a name before much longer.

"Fuck, _wait_ ," Colin says out of nowhere, grabbing his cell phone. "I just thought of something. I have to call Stacey; I'll be back in a few."

Tyson blinks as Colin runs out of the room.

"Uh," Nate says. Tyson turns and finds him frowning after Colin. "Why's he need to call his editor so badly?"

"I'm not sure," Tyson says. "He'll tell us. C'mon, we're almost through the list."

"Right," Nate says. "Three more, and then—"

Tyson's phone rings, and a glance at the caller ID lets him know that it's a department-issued number. "Hold that thought," he says, picking it up. "This is Barrie."

"This is Jost," Tyson hears. "We found it. Her. The missing person."

"You _found_ her already?" Tyson says, leaning back in his chair. "Holy shit, Josty, that's—"

"No, sorry," Jost says quickly. "I mean we figured it out. We know who O'Reilly has."

"Oh," Tyson says. He sits back up and grabs a pen and his notepad. "Okay, that's still good. Give me what you know."

"Cailey Joong-Lam," Jost says. "Her apartment is just off of 6th and Speer."

"Right," Tyson says. He writes the name down, then rolls his eyes at himself as he turns to his computer, where her information is already in a document for him. "She didn't answer?"

"No," Jost says, voice grim. "Comphs knocked and the door swung open. We followed protocol when we got no response and saw signs of a struggle inside." He hesitates. "There was a note on the counter, and it's got your name in it."

"Shit," Tyson says, going still. "Send me a photo."

"Already sent it. Check your email," Jost replies. "We're going to stay here and secure the scene, but you guys should probably head over this way, or send the forensics people."

"We'll send a team," Tyson says, clicking around on his computer. "Thanks, Josty."

"Let me know if there's anything we can do," Jost says. "We all want to kick this guy's ass for you. Like, also for Denver, but first for you."

Tyson smiles. He doesn't have an incredibly common name, so it was a little bit of a shock to find out that one of the new kids was also called Tyson, but it's given them a weird kind of bond. "Thanks, man."

"Later, dude," Jost says before hanging up, and Tyson rolls his eyes, still smiling. A weird bond, he thinks, because Jost is a weird guy. Nice, but kind of strange.

The smile slides off his face as he finds Jost's email. It's the same chicken scratch as the other note had been, and it's definitely Ryan's. _I'm sure the oh-so-great Detective Barrie will find this nice woman in no time! He'd better, at least, because she pretty much has no time left…_

"Nate," Tyson calls. "We've got her name. He left another note."

Nate hurries over, and his face goes dark when he reads it. "Shit. Do we have anything at all on where he might have taken her?"

"No," Tyson says helplessly. "The first note was letting us know it was someone who worked for the Governor, and this one is just about finding her."

"Shit," Nate repeats, looking frustrated. "Okay, well, I guess we start this the old-fashioned way. We'll send people over to do some sweeps of the building, check for security footage—"

"I know where we need to look," Colin says, bursting back into the room. Tyson looks up as Colin stops right in front of his desk. "I remembered something, and I called Stacey, and I was _right_. I know where he's gonna take whoever he took."

"Details," Nate says. It would sound rude to someone who isn't used to police work, probably, but Colin's been around enough to not be visibly bothered by it.

"I have an address," Colin says, showing Nate the screen of his phone. "Stacey had the first draft of the book, which had a different ending. I set it in an abandoned warehouse in the industrial district for the final draft, but it was originally in an abandoned ski lodge near Golden."

"And when Ryan stole your new book, he also stole the first draft," Tyson says, catching on. "I mean, we'll definitely check it out, but—"

"Double doors," Colin says. He grabs Tyson's phone and taps in his passcode, but before Tyson can ask him how, exactly, he knows that, he's showing Tyson the photo of Ryan's first note that Tyson had shown him earlier. The useless doodle that Ryan had drawn on the back of the paper is all Tyson can focus on right now; the double front doors sit in the plain frame, and Tyson glances up at Nate.

"He's obsessed with Colin, and everything is super tied into his books," Nate says. "And he seems really sure that he gave us enough clues, or he would have worded things differently in that second note. That's how the whole psychopath thing works, I'm pretty sure."

"Okay, yeah," Tyson says, standing up and walking for Gabe's office. "Let's explain everything and get going."

-0-

The drive to Golden is usually about half an hour, but Tyson throws on his lights and makes it there in fifteen minutes. He cuts the lights about two miles out but doesn't drop his speed, and Nate doesn't say anything, just adjusts his grip on the door and stares straight ahead.

Tyson's phone rings as he's pulling onto the gravel road that leads to a decrepit-looking building in the distance. He nods at Nate, who puts it on speaker. "Barrie and MacKinnon," he says.

"Detectives, this is Sheriff Shrader from the Jefferson County office," comes the reply. "I'm guessing that's you coming up the road now. We've been on scene for about five minutes, and we've got movement inside. Holding steady out here, as per your request."

"Copy," Tyson says. "Where are you located?"

"A little bit past the next bend," Shrader replies. "You'll see us in a minute."

"We'll convene and move forward together," Tyson says. "Thanks, Sheriff."

"Thank me when we rescue that lady," Shrader says, hanging up.

Nate snorts. "To the point. I like him."

"I like that he was able to get here so fast, and that he's willing to work with us," Tyson says. He rounds the corner, sees two squad cars parked behind a few overgrown bushes, and pulls up alongside them. "Let's get moving."

Nate unbuckles his seatbelt. "Tys?"

"Yeah," Tyson says, turning slightly.

"We gonna talk about how _Hello Operator_ ended with that building blowing up and almost everybody involved dying, or are we just gonna let that one go?" Nate asks.

"I was planning on letting it go, actually," Tyson says. "We'll be fine. We're going to be fine, Nate."

Nate nods. "Right, yeah."

"As if Ryan would blow us up when he's still got more murders to do," Tyson adds. It's grim, but it's probably true. Probably.

It gets Nate to roll his eyes, though, and some of the tension leaves his frame. "Good point," he says. "I'm gonna punch him so hard he pukes. That's the plan."

"I approve," Tyson says. "Ready?"

"Let's do this," Nate says.

A tall, thin man steps away from the cluster of officers when they get out of the car. "I'm Sheriff Shrader," he says. "Detectives, I'm assuming?"

"I'm Barrie, and this is MacKinnon," Tyson replies. "What are we looking at, Sheriff?"

"No sound. There's intermittent movement inside, but we haven't heard anything," Shrader says. "We haven't noticed anyone leaving the scene. There's nowhere to go on the other side of the building, so we set up over here and have another squad car patrolling down below just in case."

"I'm kinda worried that he's already gone," Nate says grimly. "We should move in."

"Ex-cop, you said," Shrader says, shaking his head. "I remember a case a few years back down in your neck of the woods. Something in the water?"

"Same guy," Tyson says, trying not to let himself give too much away. "I'm happy to fill you in, Sheriff, but we should get moving."

Shrader whistles. "Yikes," he comments. "On your mark, Detectives. We'll follow."

Tyson glances over at Nate. "Ready?"

"Ready," Nate confirms. "Let's hope we can end this before it gets worse."

"Worse than a high-profile kidnapping?" Shrader asks. "Man, I'm happier every day that I moved out of the city."

"I'm starting to consider it," Tyson mutters. He runs a quick check—vest, gun, phone, everything in place—and then nods. "Sheriff, what's the best way in?"

"Down and around to the left, then up the back," Shrader says. "There's more to hide behind that way, so there's less of a chance we'll be noticed."

"Okay, let's do that, then," Tyson says. He nods at the three uniformed officers standing by the patrol cars. "Are your guys coming with us or hanging back?"

Shrader looks over at them. "Dupont, Hendricks, with me," he says. "Eldin, you hang back and shoot the son of a bitch if he slips by us, okay?"

"Ten-four, Sheriff," one of the guys says. "Good luck in there."

"Don't need luck," Shrader says. "I've got Dupont."

One of the other officers rolls his eyes. "I'm still not your lucky rabbit's foot, Sheriff."

"Not with that attitude," Shrader replies. "Up and at 'em."

Tyson grins and shakes his head before glancing back to the house. He can't see anything moving from here, but he trusts that Shrader had seen something. Hopefully it wasn't Ryan doing... anything, Tyson thinks, grimacing to himself. Anything at all. Hopefully he's just sitting inside, waiting for them to come in and arrest him without a protest.

Pigs might fly, too, but Tyson also isn't banking on that.

"Let's go," he says. "Down and around to the left. Make it quick, but be careful."

"Roger," Shrader says. "Let's go."

There's not actually all that much cover; it's enough for them to get by, but there's a lot of ducking and covering. It makes for a kind of awkward crouch-run up to the house, but ten minutes later they're in position by the double doors. Tyson takes a deep breath, then nods at Nate.

Nate reaches out and wraps his fingers around the handle. The door creaks loudly as it opens; there goes any chance they had at the element of surprise, probably, but they were about to lose that anyway. "Police," Nate thunders, entering the house, and Tyson runs in after him.

"Clear," Shrader says when Tyson's halfway through the main hallway. The officers call back in kind, and Tyson races his way through the house, looking for Cailey, looking for Ryan, looking for—

"Here," Nate calls, voice urgent, and Tyson backpedals hard out of the room he's in and runs across the hall to the room Nate had entered. Tyson's first thought is that the scene isn't as grisly as he'd feared it would be, but it's immediately replaced by concern, because Nate looks up at him from where he's kneeling next to Cailey, eyes wide and panicked. "She's overdosing on something. There's a syringe. I don't know what he dosed her with."

"Shit, fuck," Tyson says, stepping back out into the hallway. "Shrader! Back here! Do you have Narcan in your patrol car?"

"Do you one better," Shrader says, jogging towards Tyson as he fiddles with his vest. "I keep it on me. We're clear all through the house, Barrie. Your guy's gone."

"We'll find him later," Tyson says, snatching the bottle from Shrader's hand. "She's alive, but he dosed her up."

"We'll call in a team, start searching the grounds," Shrader says, reaching for his radio. "You give her the Narcan, and we'll—"

The sound of a gunshot rings out, loud and clear from the direction of the squad cars, and Shrader spins around like he's the one who took the bullet. "Boys," he hollers.

"Outside," Hendricks shouts back.

There's a crackling noise as Shrader taps at his radio. "Eldin, report," he says, already moving for the door. "Eldin?"

Tyson takes a deep breath and closes his eyes for a fraction of a second before turning to administer the Narcan. He doesn't listen to Shrader running from the house, or to his panicked officers following behind him, or to the silence that follows. He doesn't listen as he hears yelling from the direction of the squad cars, then someone screaming.

He already knows what Ryan did. He doesn't have to listen.

-0-

"It wasn't your fault," Colin says quietly. It's hours later, Cailey stable at the hospital and paperwork filed and grief settling harsh into Tyson's bones. Gabe had sent him and Nate home as quickly as he'd been able to, and Colin had followed without hesitation when Tyson said he was leaving the precinct early. They're home now, nestled in the living room with Girard keeping watch downstairs.

"We saved the kidnapping victim," Tyson says. He has his eyes closed as he sits on his sofa, head tilted to rest on the back. "I should've known better. We didn't need five people in that house; I should have told Shrader to leave two guys outside."

"Ryan would have shot both of them," Colin says. "His goal probably wasn't even the kidnapping. He knew we'd figure it out, and he probably would have been thrilled in some sick way if Cailey didn't make it, but I'd bet his goal was to take out an officer."

Tyson winces without opening his eyes. "That's so incredibly fucked up."

"Yeah," Colin agrees. "Par for the course, though."

"It is," Tyson says. He opens his eyes and turns his head, still half-laying. "How did I date someone so fucked up for so long?"

Colin gives him a small smile. "Sounds like he's a much better liar than he ever was a cop."

"He wasn't half bad at being a cop, though," Tyson says.

"That maybe proves my point even more," Colin replies. "It's also not your fault for not noticing, Tyson. You're allowed to see the best in people you care about."

It makes Tyson smile a little; he doesn't think he can say anything he wants to right now, but he's really starting to think that when the timing's a little better, it's going to go well. He's not in the right frame of mind, for sure, and he's exhausted, and an officer had died today while Tyson was only a few hundred yards away. Colin looks warm and soft in the oversized sweater he'd put on when they got home, but it's just not the time.

"Hey," Tyson says instead of anything else that might spill out of his mouth. "I'm gonna cook tonight. What do you want? Anything special?"

Colin laughs, a short, surprised thing. "You cook?"

"I can," Tyson replies. "Nothing incredibly fancy, but I manage to feed myself. I make a mean chocolate lava cake, too."

"Oh, I have to try that," Colin says, and his smile is much fuller now. "I'm putting in a request for cake, and the rest of it is up to you."

Tyson laughs. "I'll see what I can pull together."

He was probably understating how un-fancy his food is; he manages baked chicken and a rice dish, but there are no vegetables in the crisper, freezer, or pantry, so he just gives them both extra rice. Colin's way too nice to say anything, especially since Tyson puts the lava cake in to bake while they're eating. The smell of chocolate definitely covers for a lot of his incredibly average cooking skills.

"Thank you," Colin says after they finish their meal. He's helping Tyson load the dishwasher while the cake rests; Tyson knows from a lot of past experience that trying to take it out of the pan right out of the oven just leads to goo everywhere. It's delicious, but half the fun of lava cake is presentation; he doesn't generally bother when it's just himself, but Colin's worth waiting five minutes.

"No problem," Tyson says, smiling at him. It's easier than he thought it might be; the past two days have been, all told, hell in a handbasket for the both of them, but it's almost like the tension has dissipated, banished from the kitchen and leaving them with this comfortable sort of quiet between them. "I like cooking sometimes. It's something I can do that goes exactly how I think it will as long as I follow the directions."

"Huh," Colin says, rinsing the last plate before handing it to Tyson. "I never really thought about it that way."

"Some days I need that kind of thing after I get home," Tyson says as he closes the dishwasher. "It was either learn to cook or take up knitting, and I get really pissed off when the yarn gets all tangled up, so cooking it was."

Colin laughs. "Okay, well, you cook and I'll take care of the knitting," he says lightly. "It's really relaxing."

Tyson gives him a look. "Did you make that sweater?"

"Oh, definitely not," Colin says, glancing down. "This came from somewhere in the mall. I mostly do socks."

"Socks," Tyson repeats. "You knit? You make _socks_?"

"I do," Colin confirms. "Pretty basic ones, but I make socks."

"That's incredible," Tyson says, grinning. "Oh, man, can you make them out of that fake fur crap? Gabe needs a pair."

Colin laughs. "That would be a nightmare," he says. "I can try, though."

"I promise it would be worth it," Tyson says, laughing as he pictures the look on Gabe's face. He's still smiling a moment later when he takes a breath and steels himself, just a little. Yesterday was bad and today was worse; right now, though, right now is better. It still might not be the best possible time, but Tyson feels like it's right enough, anyway. "Hey, Colin?"

"Yeah?" Colin asks, smiling back at him.

"I'm sorry the circumstances are shitty, but I'm glad you're here," Tyson says. It comes out at a reasonable speed, volume, and tone, and Tyson doesn't know if he's ever been this glad about the way he delivered a sentence before. "It's, uh. It's nice."

Well, half of it was good, anyway.

"It is nice," Colin agrees, and his smile is softer. "I've… I've wanted to do something like this for a while. Minus all the murder stuff, I mean."

"We should do it more often," Tyson says. "Again, not the murder stuff, just to make sure that's clear."

"Yeah, I figured," Colin says. He takes a step closer. "Not to jump into anything, but how do you feel about eating that cake while we watch a movie, and then going to bed? Together, I mean, and just to sleep."

There's red high on Colin's cheeks, and it's a very, very good look on him. "I think that sounds great," Tyson says. "Really, really great."

"Good," Colin says. "Great. That's awesome."

Tyson laughs, and this is normally where he would feel self-conscious, but everything still feels easy. "Let's go, then," he says.

"Yeah," Colin says, reaching out to squeeze Tyson's hand for a second before letting go and turning towards the living room. "Let's."

-0-

Half of Tyson's precinct attends Anthony Eldin's funeral; there's always a big turnout when an officer goes down, but Tyson is glad that so many of his guys are in the church pews today. It's nice, as these things go, and it helps that Colin stands right beside him, offering his support without saying anything.

"Thanks," Tyson says as they file out of the church. "For being here."

"It's not your fault and it's not my fault, but it's as much my fault as it is your fault," Colin says, giving him a brief smile. "Which doesn't make any sense, but I don't think anything could have kept me from coming."

"Let's just blame Ryan," Tyson suggests.

Colin nods. "Deal."

"Detective Barrie," Tyson hears, and he turns to see Sheriff Shrader standing along the side of the path from the church to the parking area. "Thank you for coming."

"Of course," Tyson says, holding his hand out.

Shrader shakes it firmly. "Eldin was a great cop," he says. "And if he thought you were beating yourself up about what happened, well, he'd probably figure out how to haunt me until I could tell you quit it."

It surprises a small laugh out of Tyson. "Thank you, Sheriff. If he does start haunting you, let him know that we're doing okay, and we're going to find the guy who did this to him."

"If you need any help with that, we'll be there," Shrader says. "We would've been anyway, but now it's personal."

"The whole thing is so incredibly personal that it's getting ridiculous," Tyson says, smiling briefly. "We'll count you in, though. Thank you, Sheriff, and I'll let our captain know to keep your office in the loop. I know inter-county cooperation isn't always at its best, but we'll make sure you aren't left out of this one."

"I appreciate that," Shrader says. He turns and nods at Colin. "Thanks for coming, Officer…?"

"Oh, no," Colin says, shaking his head. "I just work with—I'm Colin. Colin Wilson. I'm not an officer."

Shrader's whole face brightens. "Wait, the author? You're the one who wrote _We All Fall Down,_ right? One of the best pieces of mystery fiction I've ever read."

"Oh," Colin says, blinking. "That's—thank you, Sheriff. That means a lot, coming from someone who actually knows what they're reading."

Shrader nods. "Tony liked your books, too," he says. "He'd get a real kick out of knowing that you of all people were here. Thanks for coming."

"Of course," Colin says. "I'm sorry about what happened, and I'm hoping everyone involved can wrap this whole thing up soon."

"You and me both, son," Shrader says. "Now, if you'll excuse me, there's a few other people I'd like to talk with."

They say their goodbyes and walk to Tyson's car, and as soon as they're both inside, Colin sighs and rubs at his eyes. "Does he know the whole story with Ryan and my books?"

"No," Tyson says, starting the car. "There wasn't time to explain it before we went in, and there hasn't really been a good time since. I'm gonna have Gabe catch him up on everything."

"Good," Colin says, finally turning to give Tyson what is, at best, half a smile. "Is it bad that I'd rather take a nap than go to the precinct this afternoon?"

"I can drop you home," Tyson offers. He can feel himself want to backtrack pretty much immediately; this thing between them is new and fragile and not really well defined right now, but it's definitely not to the point of them sharing anything that could be called _home_ yet. "Or, like, my place. Not your home, just your temporary home, because that's—"

Colin's laughing at him. "I'll go in with you," he says. "But if you need to stay late, I'm going home with Other Tyson."

"There are a lot of empty pizza boxes in that apartment," Tyson warns as he pulls out of the parking lot and points them towards the precinct. "Kerfoot talks about it all super fondly, but he did also move out."

"I'm pretty sure that was to give the new couple their privacy, and to keep Kerfoot from seeing anything he could never unsee," Colin says, amused. "Let's hope today's an early day, and then we'll go home and call it an early night."

"I hope it works out that way," Tyson says. It's been long enough since the kidnapping and Eldin's death that Tyson's pretty sure Ryan's itching to do whatever the next thing on his shitty to-do list is, but hopefully he can wait one more day. "I promise to not stay late if it doesn't become necessary, how's that?"

Colin reaches out and fleetingly touches Tyson's shoulder. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Tyson says. He glances over quickly to smile at Colin. "I'd hate to subject you to whatever Other Tyson gets up to after hours."

"On the other hand, I'd probably be pretty safe hanging out with two cops until you finished work," Colin says thoughtfully. "Maybe that should be the plan. You go work until everything you need to finish is finished, and I'll make Kerfoot come back with me, Jost, and Compher. I can figure out what's going on there, and when you're done, you can pick me up."

Tyson laughs. "I mean, if you want to go into the honeymoon suite, be my guest," he says. "Good luck, though."

Colin laughs. "I might need it, that's for sure."

"You'd definitely," Tyson starts, but suddenly there's a car beside them in the shoulder, keeping pace with them, and every single nerve in Tyson's body sings all at once. "Lay your seat all the way down, right now," he snaps. "Get your phone and call Gabe. Put it on speaker."

"What," Colin says, but he's already reaching down for the recliner handle and pushing his seat back. "Tyson, what is it?"

"Hopefully nothing, but possibly Ryan," Tyson says. He quickly does the mental math; he's way too far from the precinct to try making it there, and he doesn't know where the nearest police station is this far from his own home base. "I changed my mind. Call 911. Still put it on speaker."

"Okay," Colin says. He taps at his phone as Tyson glances over at the other car, which is still keeping pace. The speaker clicks on just as the 911 operator picks up.

"This is Detective Tyson Barrie, Denver PD," Tyson says. "I'm on my way from Golden to Denver and I have a civilian passenger. I have reason to believe the murder suspect I've been tracking is tailing my car. Requesting immediate backup."

"Okay, Detective," the woman on the other end says. "Where are you, exactly? I'll put out a call to redirect the nearest—"

Tyson doesn't hear what comes after that, because that's when the other car rams into Colin's door. Tyson's head snaps sideways into the window with the force of the impact, and then everything goes dark.

-0-

"There he is," Tyson hears as he sluggishly blinks his eyes open. He's in the back of a car, he notices, and his hands are cuffed together in front of him. "Hey, babe, c'mon. Check in with me. You hit your head pretty hard."

Ryan, Tyson recognises. It's Ryan asking him if he's okay, and he's disoriented, knows this isn't good but can't remember why, because Ryan's a cop, Ryan's his—

He gasps and jerks upright as some of the fog clears, and then he shudders and whines as his head roils with pain. Ryan's a serial killer; that's why this is bad. It would figure that he'd remember that _after_ anything else.

"Tys," Ryan says. "I'm driving, babe, but I need you to check in, okay?"

"You rammed into my car," Tyson says. His head is pounding and he's trying to to get nauseous, but between being crammed into the backseat and the concussion he probably has, he's betting it's a lost cause. "You hit me."

"To be fair, I didn't hit you, I hit your boyfriend," Ryan says, glancing into the back seat. "You just happened to be in the car."

"Colin," Tyson says, blinking his eyes open. "What did you do to—"

"Oh, babe," Ryan chuckles. "He's fine! He's fine. Turn your head to the left, but slowly, okay?"

Tyson's heart is racing as he does as he's instructed, and he has to bite the inside of his cheek hard not to react aloud to what he finds. Colin is very definitely not fine; there's blood matted in his hair, and his right arm is bent at an awkward angle. His left arm is handcuffed to the door handle, and he's still unconscious, which is definitely not a great sign.

"Ryan," Tyson says, forcing himself to swallow. "How long have we been driving?"

"Hmm," Ryan answers. "Why would I tell you that? You don't need to know that."

"I think I do," Tyson says. His mind is racing, but it's hard to think past the pain in his head, the way his vision is starting to swim. He closes his eyes, hoping it'll help a little. "How long was I unconscious for, Ryan?"

"Not long," Ryan says. "You don't have to worry. You're not tracking right, I know, but you came to fast enough that it's not really worrisome."

"Okay," Tyson says. There was a training, he knows, something about how to negotiate with people who had hostages. He can only sort of remember it, and he's not sure how much of it is applicable when he's one of the hostages, but he doesn't have anything else he can try right now. Placate them, he thinks. Make them believe they have the upper hand. "Thank you for telling me."

"You're welcome," Ryan says. His voice sounds upbeat, almost happy. "We've got a little longer to drive before we get where we're going, okay? Maybe close your eyes again."

"Already doing that," Tyson says. "I think I'm gonna fall asleep. My head really hurts, Ryan."

"Okay," Ryan says, and now his tone is gentle, almost soothing. "Rest, babe, okay? I'll wake you up when we get there."

"Okay," Tyson says, and then he goes quiet. His head absolutely hurts, but there's no way he's going to sleep; if Ryan thinks he's out, though, he might have some time to try to think through the situation.

The silver lining is that he'd been able to give the 911 operator some pretty important information before the crash; she knows who he is and that he had someone with him, she knows approximately where he'd been, and assuming the phone hadn't disconnected during the crash, she probably heard that something happened to them afterwards, even if Ryan hadn't given anything away. He can't check to see if his own phone is still tucked into the pocket in his suit jacket, but he's willing to bet it isn't. Phones can be tracked, and Ryan's aware of that.

Their best bet is probably for Tyson to play along with whatever Ryan's doing, he decides. It'll probably buy them time, and hopefully there's something, some clue, anything at all, that will let his team figure out where they are before something bad happens. Something worse, Tyson mentally amends. He's not sure he can rank the best day of this week, but today definitely isn't that day.

Colin groans, and Tyson's eyes snap open. He's moving his head a little, rolling his shoulders, and he gasps audibly as his right arm twitches. "What," he says, blinking his eyes open.

"Hey, hey, Colin," Tyson says. He twists around so he can read his bound hands out. "Don't move too much, okay? I think your arm is broken, and your head is bleeding."

"Tyson," Colin says, turning to see him. He recoils when he catches sight of him, so Tyson figures he doesn't look much better than Colin does. Colin glances forward, then back at Tyson, apparently putting the pieces together as he does so. "Oh."

"Oh," Ryan repeats mockingly. "I thought you were the smart one, and all you've got for me is _oh_?"

"I can call you an asshole again if it makes you feel better," Colin retorts. He winces as he flexes the fingers on his right hand, then starts slowly moving it back towards his chest. It'll probably help to hold it up, Tyson realises. Having it stretched out across his lap like that probably makes the pain a lot worse.

"I definitely don't like you," Ryan says. "I might have to change my plans up here. You're way more of a pain in my ass than I thought."

Colin snorts, still slowly moving his hand. "If calling you an asshole is all it takes to get on your shit list, man, you must not have _any_ friends."

"You really want to piss me off more?" Ryan challenges.

"If I say no and tell you I'm sorry, will you let me and Tyson go?" Colin throws back. "Because I'm pretty sure that's not on the table."

Ryan hums. "Point."

"Then I'm probably going to keep calling you an asshole," Colin says. He's got his hand tucked inside his jacket and is slowly raising it up. He's sweating a little, and Tyson can't imagine how much it has to be hurting him. He glances over at Tyson and gives him a smile that looks almost reassuring. Tyson's not sure why, but he smiles back anyway.

"Hey, asshole," Colin says, fidgeting with his jacket. "This isn't in any of my books. Did you find a new author to torment?"

"Nah, still pretty dedicated to tormenting you," Ryan says. "I can be creative, too. I don't need to follow your script."

Colin sighs, deep and loud. "Everyone thinks they can just do their own thing. We'll see how well this one works out, but so far, I'm giving it a three out of ten for originality."

"Tys, you're being quiet," Ryan says, ignoring Colin's reply entirely. "How's your head?"

"Not great, gonna be honest," Tyson says. It's the truth, too; even if the concussion from the initial crash hadn't been too bad, he's pretty sure everything since then has made it worse. "I would really love to get some medical attention."

"I'll give you an ice pack and some Tylenol," Ryan promises. The car is slowing down, Tyson notices kind of distantly. "I'm gonna bring the pain in my ass inside first, because I don't think he hit his head as hard, so he's more of a flight risk. I'll be back, babe, okay?"

"Where," Tyson asks, trying to turn his head so he can look out the window, maybe get his bearings.

"Home sweet home," Ryan says, opening the door and stepping out.

"Tyson," Colin whispers urgently. "Tyson, keep it together, okay? Just keep it together. I've got this."

"What," Tyson asks, really wishing he could form complete sentences right now. Before he can say anything else, though, Colin's door is yanked open and he falls out, left arm still handcuffed to the door. He screams as he hits the ground, probably jarring every bone in his body, and Tyson lurches across the seat, forgetting for a split second about his own head, and his vision swims for a moment before he passes out again.

-0-

Tyson doesn't want to open his eyes; all he can tell is that he's not in the car anymore, and for all that he's pretty sure he's laying on a sofa of some sort, he doesn't really want to know more about his surroundings. It's a dumb thought and he knows it, but Tyson still allows himself to wallow in it for a five count before he forces his eyes open. He groans; the light is brighter than he was hoping it would be, and his head absolutely does not feel any better.

"Tyson," Colin calls, relief evident in his voice, and Tyson slowly looks around the room, trying to find him. "To your right, Tys, look over here."

Tyson catches a little movement out of the corner of his eyes and turns towards it; he can't see much, since he's not sitting up, but he recognises Colin's suit pants, easier to locate because of the way Colin's gently bouncing his leg. "Hi," he says, not trying to move too much. "What's happening?"

"Oh good, you're back," Ryan says, and Tyson can't help the way his face twists. Ryan chuckles, and it's an incredibly grating sound, and not just because of the concussion. "I'm going to put an ice pack on your head, babe, to help with the swelling. Try not to move or it'll fall off."

Tyson doesn't want Ryan anywhere hear him, not while he's handcuffed and too hurt to fight back, but all Ryan does is gently place something cold against where Tyson's head hurts the most. He hisses at the unexpected sting; there's probably a cut, he surmises, and he's not sure why he didn't think that might be the case before.

Or, well. Concussion, his brain helpfully reminds him. That'll do it.

"Twenty on, and then I'll come back to take it off," Ryan says. "I'll give you some Tylenol then, too."

"Why?" Tyson asks. He can only sort of see Ryan with the way the ice pack is hanging in his face, but Ryan steps back and crouches so he's in Tyson's limited field of vision. "Why are you helping me?"

"I don't want you to die," Ryan says simply, like that makes any kind of sense at all. "Tys, c'mon. Why would I want you to die?"

Tyson blinks and wonders if concussions can make you completely mishear what someone else is saying, because that doesn't make any fucking sense.

"Then why are we here?" Colin asks.

Ryan chuckles again as he stands and turns. All Tyson can see is Ryan's legs as he walks towards where Colin's pants had been visible a few minutes ago, towards where Colin's voice is coming from. "I didn't say anything about not wanting _you_ to die."

"So you want to kill me and make Tyson watch," Colin says. There's no emotion at all in his voice, no fear, nothing. He already figured it out, Tyson thinks, squeezing his eyes shut. Ryan wants to kill Colin, and he wants to make Tyson watch, and suddenly Tyson is rolling forward until he's at the edge of the sofa, losing the contents of his stomach onto the floor.

"Tys," Ryan chides gently when Tyson finishes, shuddering and feeling like he's going to pass out again. "You need to stay still, c'mon. It's not going to help your head if you keep moving around like that. And you lost your ice."

"Go to hell," Tyson rasps out, trying to catch his breath. "What the fuck is _wrong_ with you?"

"Well, I'm technically a psychopath, so that's one thing right there," Ryan says thoughtfully.

"I can name more, if you haven't figured them all out yet," Colin offers. "You've got some pretty intense delusions, for one. You've got no people skills at all."

"I have plenty of people skills," Ryan objects. It would almost be funny, the petulance in his voice, if the situation wasn't so dire. "How d'you think I get people to go along with my ideas, huh?"

"Kidnapping and battery, from what I can see," Colin says. "Those aren't people skills, man. Those are crimes, and they're two very different things."

"I'll show you _battery_ ," Ryan snarls. Tyson can hear him walking towards Colin, and he struggles to open his eyes, to witness whatever's about to happen so he can corroborate Colin's story if they manage to get out of this somehow.

"Stop fucking moving, you absolute piece of shit," someone barks from behind the sofa, and Tyson blinks a few times as Ryan freezes before slowly turning around.

"Nate," Ryan says, suddenly beaming. "How have you been, buddy? I haven't seen you in such a long time."

Tyson slumps back against the sofa. _Nate_. His team is here, they figured it out, and this can just be goddamned _over_.

"Give me a really good reason not to shoot you," Nate says. "Like, a _really_ good one."

Ryan laughs and takes a step to the side, putting himself between Nate and Colin. "Because if I duck out of the way in time, you kill your friend here."

"Take the shot, Nate," Colin says. "Tyson's not doing—it's not good. Take the fucking shot. I'll be fine."

"Uh, no," Nate says. "Sorry, Colin, but we'll figure something else out. I'm not gonna shoot you."

"Which means you're not gonna shoot me," Ryan says, voice smug. "What if I up the stakes, huh? What if I just…"

Colin sucks in a sharp breath, and Tyson forces himself back to the edge of the sofa, peering around the edge. Ryan's got a gun now, pulled out of somewhere, and he's pointing it in Tyson's direction.

"Your call, Nate," Ryan says sweetly. "You can try to shoot me and maybe shoot your friend, or you can wait and watch me shoot Tyson."

"So much for not wanting me to die," Tyson slurs out.

"Ryan," Nate says, tone pleading. "What the fuck. What the _fuck_."

"Leave, and they both live," Ryan says. "For now."

Tyson jerks when the first gunshot goes off, curling back into the sofa. He's not hit, he registers, but two more gunshots go off in rapid succession, and he hears something—some _one_ —hit the ground.

"God, I fucking _hate_ you," EJ says from the other side of the room, and then he hears Colin say something and Nate respond, and there's no reply from Ryan, nothing at all, and Tyson decides that maybe unconsciousness is the best course of action, just this once more.

-0-

Consciousness returns slowly the third time around; Tyson notices a strong, clean smell, and then faint beeping, and then that he's in a comfortable position. He flexes his left hand and feels something pull, then tries to flex his right and figures out very suddenly that someone's holding it.

He opens his eyes cautiously. He's in a hospital, which is absolutely excellent news. The pull at his left hand was due to the IV taped down there, and his right hand is currently held tightly in Colin's left. Colin has his head down on the side of Tyson's bed, and it looks like he's asleep.

"Hey," someone says quietly. Tyson turns to his left and sees Gabe sitting in the chair beside his bed. "How are you doing?"

Tyson blinks at him, then glances back at Colin, then back to Gabe. "I'm alive, so that's better than things were looking the last time I remember," he says. "How long have I been out?"

"Two and a half days," Gabe says, something shuttering in his expression. "You were in bad shape, Tyson. The doctors kept you under for a little while so you didn't thrash around, and when they brought you out of it, you came up for about two minutes before you fell asleep. The doctors said that was pretty normal, something about a coma not actually being restful."

"A coma," Tyson repeats. "That's… I thought I just had a concussion."

"I mean, you don't _not_ have a concussion," Gabe says. "Colin said you hit your head on the window when Ryan slammed into your car. You fractured your skull, Tys."

"Fractured," Tyson echoes. "Shit."

"Yeah," Colin says, voice rough. When Tyson looks over, Colin's smiling up at him, head still resting on the bed. "I'd say you looked worse than it was, but I think it was the opposite, and that's saying a lot."

"Colin," Tyson says, squeezing his hand. "You're okay?"

Colin sits up, wincing slightly as he does, and Tyson sees that his right arm is in a cast. "I will be," he says. "I got out of this whole thing with a clean break and some sore ribs. And, like, a whole bunch of new nightmares, but I'm already planning to talk things through with my therapist, so everything's handled."

"I'm gonna grab a coffee and call Nate," Gabe says, standing from his chair. "You guys probably have half an hour before Hurricane MacKinnon lands, and he'll almost definitely have EJ and Mikko with him."

"Thanks, Gabe," Tyson says as Gabe walks towards the door. "For… everything, I guess."

Gabe laughs and shakes his head before leaving, pulling Tyson's door closed behind him.

"Hey," Colin murmurs. "What do you remember?"

Tyson frowns. "We were… somewhere," he says slowly. "A house, I think, but I don't know where. And Ryan was going to kill you, but then he was going to kill me, and then…"

Colin laughs, short and small, and closes his eyes. "I pushed the button on the locator thing while we were in the car," he says.

Tyson blinks. "The locator thing," he says. "The panic button. Oh my god, I completely forgot about those."

"Yours was on your keychain, which was still in your car," Colin says. "Also, you had a concussion, and you were probably going into shock. It's okay. I remembered, and Ryan was too busy driving and being pissed off at me to notice I was trying to get to my keys."

"Your jacket," Tyson remembers. "I thought you were just, like, raising your arm up above your heart."

"Oh," Colin says, blinking. "Yeah, that would've been smart, huh?"

Tyson laughs. "So that's how they found us," he says. "I'm glad you remembered."

Colin smiles. "Me, too. Nate came in the front, and from what they've told me, it was mostly to be a distraction while EJ and Mikko snuck in through other entrances. Ryan was so focused on Nate that he didn't notice EJ, and EJ had a clear shot, so…"

"So he took it," Tyson finishes. "Three shots. Center mass, I'm guessing."

It makes Colin grimace. "Let's just say this one won't go to trial," he says, glancing away. "And he very definitely won't be bothering us again."

"I'm sorry you had to see that," Tyson says, squeezing his hand again. "I'm so sorry for all of this, Colin."

"I'm sorry for most of it," Colin says. He lifts their joined hands and presses a small kiss to the back of Tyson's before giving him a smile. "I'm not sorry that we got here."

Tyson blinks. "Are you sure?" he asks cautiously. "I mean, my job… there's always gonna be cases like this. It's dangerous."

Colin hums. "Any more crazy murdering exes waiting in the wings?"

"Probably not, but at this point, I'm going with 'never say never,'" Tyson says.

"Good enough for me," Colin says, smiling. "I like you. I want to see where we can take that, and I want to keep crashing at your place until I can find a new apartment for myself, because I don't ever want to sleep in an apartment Ryan has set foot in ever again."

Tyson shudders. "Yeah, don't do that," he agrees. "I'll help you apartment hunt, and you can stay with me until you find somewhere. They probably won't want me being home by myself for a while anyway."

"Sounds like a plan," Colin says. "I can't knit until the cast comes off, but we can pick out some terrible yarn for Gabe's socks when you're up to it. I'm gonna make him, like, a dozen pairs for thinking of giving us those panic buttons, so if one of them is awful, it'll still make a good overall gift."

Tyson laughs. "It's a date," he promises. "Hey, Colin?"

Colin smiles at him. "Yeah?"

"I'm glad it's over," Tyson replies. "I'm glad we can just… move on. Together."

"Yeah," Colin says, squeezing Tyson's hand. He hasn't let go since Tyson woke up, and Tyson's willing to bet he's been holding on for a lot longer than that, too. "Together. I like the sound of that."

**Author's Note:**

>  **spoilery warnings:**  
>  -a background character is found after being forced to overdose on an unspecified drug. she ends up being fine.  
> -a background OC police officer is shot and killed off-screen.  
> -the POV character suffers a concussion in a car crash and has some brain fog issues relating to that. some of the other crash-related injuries are described, but not in detail. he vomits once as a side effect of the concussion.  
> -the Bad Guy gets shot on-screen; the POV character hears it but does not see it.
> 
> okay, now prepare for some extensive author's notes! whoops!
> 
> -the best comment i got on this during alpha/beta was at the very beginning: "ohhhh i get it the murderer is you the weapon is fluff the victims are the readers and the mystery is whether or not any of us will actually survive to the end of the fic"  
> it escalated, uh, quickly.
> 
> -the joke from the first scene about the police arresting elsa from frozen is [a real thing](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/illinois-police-arrest-elsa-frozen-disney-movie-polar-vortex-midwest-winter-arctic-wind-frigid-temperatures-2019-01-29/). i had a whole bunch of winter-themed police things that i wanted to work in, but like, plot kept happening, so you're stuck with just the elsa one.
> 
> -tyson barrie's feelings on oreos are copy/pasted directly from my own oreo feelings. RIP banana split creme.
> 
> -the gay whale mug is REAL and i LOVE IT. many, many props to ari, who heard me define my gender as "idk, whales" one too many times and then purchased me the gay gender whale mug. it's epic, y'all. i sadly do not have a mug that says MURDER SOMEONE YOU DON'T KNOW in pink glitter, but there's always tomorrow.
> 
> -stormylullabye and i absolutely refer to a cookie dough blizzard with extra cookie dough as the Tyson Barrie Special. i invite you to join us.
> 
> i know the "ryan graves NOTICES THINGS" schtick was proved to be a big fat lie, but i had already written him in and referenced him in my notes as "the almost-psychic twink" by the time the cheating thing was revealed, and i chose to keep it because it's hilarious. if you don't know what i'm talking about, please do yourself a favour and [watch this](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQeO_yA7MusxP8hvEjmc_pNc4lqnbFfny&app=desktop).
> 
> -i actually heard someone call mikko a "big finnish giraffe" at an avs game towards the end of the 2017-18 season. it made my entire goddamn month.
> 
> -a thing that is real and true: sheriff shrader is actually the sheriff of jefferson county, where golden is, though his personality and appearance are all a complete guess. the officers are made up, mainly because i did not want to kill off a real police officer. i'm probably already on enough watch lists from my normal author googling.
> 
> -something that i badly wanted to work into the epilogue but didn't end up fitting: colin dedicates his next book to officer eldin and his family.
> 
> -follow me on twitter if you'd like to hear me yelling about things i'm writing! (let me know who you are, though, as i don't accept random follow requests.)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] Take Me Home Before the Storm](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18560284) by [Annapods](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annapods/pseuds/Annapods)




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